


Pages

by Katy_Stark



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anxiety, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Depression, Everyone Needs A Hug, Everyone Needs Therapy, Hydra, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Burn, fairytales - Freeform, implied stucky - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2020-10-25 15:04:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 48
Words: 139,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20726171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katy_Stark/pseuds/Katy_Stark
Summary: Bucky Barnes is hiding, trying to find his past scrap by scrap. Red is in the wrong place at the right time, trying to form a future page by page. When she runs into his life, the gathered pieces go flying, and it's up to the two of them to put things back together. But life is never as simple as a storybook, is it?Basically what happens when Bucky finds someone just as unlucky as he is in life and gets attached by accident.Steve eventually gets dragged along for the ride."What should I call you?""Don't.""Don't. Is that a first name or a last name, Mister Don't?"





	1. Chapter 1

It never seemed to matter what house it was, the front door was always the problem. The lock constantly needed extra effort to get open, or the hinges were forever in need of oiling. He'd had his face slammed in by a few in his younger years, and done his fair share of throwing them shut due to his temper. It was the same with the first home he could remember living in, and it was the same as the 'home' he had for now. It was always the damned door.  
  
Finally getting the door open with a less than gentle nudge of his left shoulder, Bucky stumbled through and into the temporary apartment with his arms full of groceries. He kicked the door shut behind him before dumping his bags down on the nearest surface, the dining table, and shaking out his arms from the stiffness of holding them too long.   
  
He used to be good at staying in one position for long periods without backlash, a sniper had to be, and the reminder of lying in the mud in the rain with a rifle was bittersweet. Another memory to scribble in the book tossed into the nearby drawer somewhere, holding together other scraps of memories he'd managed to cling onto or claw at at some point or another. He seemed to be having more frequent negative memories than positive as of late. Too much time to himself. Too much time to think. Too much time to remember.  
  
The sound of the door behind him slamming open into the wall snapped him out of his thoughts, spinning around and raising his fists in defence of the oncoming attack. He expected soldiers, HYDRA operatives, or maybe the guy who liked to parade around wrapped in the American Flag and an oversized frisbee with his friends. But instead, a bob of brunette hair breezed by his face and into the apartment like lightning, and Bucky found himself pausing in confusion. The figure ran straight past him without engaging and instead ducked behind a set of drawers outside the door leading to the bedroom, crouching down as if to hide.  
  
His eyes followed her as the figure appeared to not have even noticed him on her way in. It was a girl, maybe nineteen or twenty judging by height, with brown eyes and green doe eyes dressed in jeans, boots up to her knees and a buttoned-up winter jacket too big for her body, along with a black backpack. Not a soldier and not the blond guy. How did she even get in? Then he realised he hadn't locked the door behind himself when putting down his groceries. Stupid mistake. Too much thinking.  
  
"Who the hell are you?" He asked, his mind finally kicking in to the idea that there was someone in his apartment, and even if they weren't dressed like a soldier or that blond guy, they still could have been a threat. He kept his hands up in defence but slightly lower.  
  
"Sh!" She hissed back at him in a rush. Bucky furrowed his brow, demandingly, especially when it clicked that she'd yelled in English and not the language he'd picked up around here. "Please, mister. If someone comes knocking on the door, don't tell them I'm here. Please!" She practically begged him, eyes darting from him to the closed door and tucking herself as far behind the drawers as possible.  
  
Not a moment later there were knuckled rapping on his door, hurried and impatient. His eyes narrowed at the door and then flicked over to the girl huddling on the floor, wide-eyed and staring up at him with fear. But it wasn't a fear of him, it was a fear of whatever was on the other side of that door and that he would be the one who let it get to her. That was... uncommon. Usually, it was him that was the threat to be protected from, not the one who did the protecting.  
  
The knocks came again and were just as rapid as the first time. He was still looking at the girl who was staring back at him, shaking her head with an imploring expression, whispering _'please go away, please go away' _under her breath. With one more second to consider it, Bucky calmly approached the door and opened it again to the stairwell.  
  
_"Good afternoon,"_ He greeted in the local language to the man standing there looking a little less than pissed with whatever situation he'd been mixed up in.  
  
_"Afternoon. I'm looking for a little thief that's been stealing from my stall and came running this way. Young girl, brown hair. Seen her passing through?" _The stranger questioned, the distinct smell of cigarettes and meat on his breath a similar sight to the smoky rough appearance of the rest of him. Then Bucky saw the similar man at the opposite end of the corridor talking to the woman who lived there, old in her mid-fifties with a face like she always smelt something burning.  
  
Bucky recognised the kind of men these. They definitely weren't interested in just handing the girl over to the authorities. No. In a lawless city like this, he knew what kinds of things would happen to her if he handed her over to these men. He didn't want to be responsible for harbouring whoever this girl was, but he knew to hand her over to this man and his friends would be a hell of a lot worse.  
  
He made his choice._ "No," _He lied.  
  
_"You sure?"_ The stranger asked, eyes narrowing sharply.  
  
_"Yes,"_ He responded in the same casual tone.  
  
The stranger looked disgruntled, muttering to himself and shifting on the spot before speaking up again. _"It can be worth your while if you have any information about her." _He attempted a smile and a hinting wink at Bucky.  
  
_"I said no," _The ex-soldier reaffirmed, keeping his body language relaxed and unchallenging.   
  
The man looked at him, and Bucky knew he was feeling doubt, but he just continued to maintain eye contact to get him to back off first. And breakaway first he did from Bucky's stare. _"I'll be on my way. Afternoon." _The man nodded at him before slowly slinking away to the opposite side of the corridor to join his friend. The friend shook their head, and the two ascended the stairs to the next floor.  
  
Bucky closed the door carefully, making sure to lock it this time, and stood silently staring ahead for a few seconds.  
  
"Is he gone?" The voice of the girl behind him was quiet, nervous, and Bucky turned around to see her peeking her forest green eyes out from behind the drawers like a deer in headlights.  
  
"For now," He answered in English, turning around to face her. She nodded minutely, crawling out from her hiding space and standing to full height. Her navy jacket reached her knees, and the bag she carried hung off one shoulder where she gripped the strap. "Who the hell are you?" He asked again since the first time she hadn't been of a mind to answer him.  
  
"Uh... going?" She asked with a weak smile, taking a step towards the door.  
  
Bucky narrowed his eyes at her shoulder. "You're bleeding." There was a dark damp patch beside a rip in her coat sleeve he hadn't seen before. A few rips actually, someone had made a good effort of getting to her with a blade of some sort and they didn't look accidental or the type to come with age and wear.  
  
"Yeah. Guy in the blue shirt nicked me on the shoulder a few times. It's fine." She rubbed her hand gently over the damp patch, hiding a wince.  
  
"It could get infected," Bucky said.  
  
"I'll deal with it. It's not your problem." She shook him off with a shrug. She was met with silence and a blank stare from the figure who towered at least a few inches over her and stood between her and her escape. "I'm just gonna go now." She began stepping towards the door again.  
  
He let her reach the door before saying "They'll be searching the building and waiting for you. He didn't believe me." She hesitated, hand on the lock. A pause. "You should wait for a little, an hour is a safe bet, before leaving." He moved away from the door to return to unpacking his groceries still left out on the table. He knew that those men on the stairs would still be looking for her, just waiting for her to show her face. He didn't know how many others there were than the two he saw, but he had a hunch there were more.  
  
"I'm sure I'll be fine," She insisted, not comfortable with the thought of staying with a stranger even if he had just saved her from a whole lot of trouble. He could be a million times worse for all she knew.  
  
"You should at least tend to that." The ex-soldier gestured to her shoulder again.  
  
"And I will, just as soon as I leave," She replied with a tight smile.  
  
"Or now because the longer you wait, the more effort it's going to take to make sure you don't end up ill." Bucky's voice was laced with command, the kind of tone he would use back in training when he would bark orders at his team. The girl flinched. He didn't like that and inwardly berated himself. He didn't want her to be scared, but he didn't know what he _did _want her to feel either. Regardless, he noted it. "Use the bathroom. 'S just through there." He offered in a softer tone but still phrased it as an order. There was no point in her being stubborn over a cut just to spite him.   
  
It seemed to work because the girl began shuffling towards the bathroom door. "Thanks." And a moment later, she disappeared behind the door.  
  
Bucky shook his head, unloading things from his bags and sliding them into their proper places. What was he doing? He didn't even know who this girl was, and he was letting her stroll around his apartment? And use the bathroom? Shit, the bathroom. He tried to remember all the things he'd stored in there and relaxed when he concluded there was nothing that would be of interest to her. Or at least nothing she would find accidentally. It wasn't like he had a lot of stuff around, he hadn't been there long. The place was mostly bare and anyone would believe there was no electricity if not for the floor lamp in the bedroom. The windows above the sink and balcony were the only things letting light in otherwise.  
  
_It was better than what was out there, _he reasoned. And if she wasn't just attempting to lull him into a false sense of security, he was helping someone. Actually helping someone. If he could help someone instead of hurting them, well, maybe it would help him try to pull himself together, prove he was more than what they made him. More than what they trained him to be.  
  
His left fist balled hidden by his sleeve, cold metal scratching against itself as the fingers grazed the palm. He'd hurt so many people. He'd like to help at least one.  
  
The door ahead of him reopened and the little brunette appeared again, coat folded over one arm and a clear mess of her shirt sleeve underneath wet with water. The shirt was just a simple black 3/4 sleeve one, nothing special and didn't look too hard to replace now it had been cut up on one sleeve.  
  
"Thank you for this. Not a lot of people would have done what you did. Not tell him, I mean. From what I've gathered this isn't a very nice place, the location or the people." She told him softly.  
  
"You're not from around here," Bucky replied, bluntly. She seemed taken aback at the sudden accusation. "You talked to me in English rather than the local language first," He added to clarify.  
  
"You're not around from here neither by the sound of your accent. Brooklyn area?" She asked. He didn't reply, just continued to keep his hands busy by returning to putting things away, keeping his weaponised side hidden from her. She rolled her tongue against the inside of her cheek with a nod. "Okay then."  
  
Bucky finished unpacking, tossing the bags in the trash before looking back over at her. "Why were they chasing you?"  
  
"He told you, didn't he?" She shrugged, folding her arms over herself. Bucky just stared at her, expectant. The brunette began to shift uncomfortably in her spot across the room under his gaze and decided she should play along for now. Best stay on his good side. After all, he could just go yelling in the stairwell that she was there. "I was hungry and at the market so I tried stealing some food. I got seen, chased, and then by some stroke of genius luck, I stumbled into your apartment because you left your door unlocked. You shouldn't do that here. Bad neighbourhood." She blabbed to him. Bucky didn't respond with much more than an acknowledging hum. And then another sound rang out in the silence of the apartment, a quiet rumbling that would be missed had there been anything else making a sound in the deathly silent room. "Sorry." The brunette folded her arms over her stomach, head dropping down to look at her boots.  
  
Bucky realised it had been her, and it was her stomach that had rumbled hungrily. "You said you stole food," He said, brow furrowing.  
  
"Yeah, but I dropped it when they started chasing me. The heat of the moment and stuff, you know?" Her stomach rumbled again. "Shut up..." She hissed at herself under her breath, turning more away from Bucky and looking to be considering leaving again.  
  
Bucky studied her, eyes flicking up and down her figure before he pulled out a chair from under the table, nodding to it. "Sit up here." It took her a moment of consideration before deciding to shuffle closer to him as he walked to a nearby cupboard. And eventually, she was sat down in the rickety seat, arms still folded over herself with her jacket tucked on her lap and bag on her back. When he turned around, she gave him a nervous but polite smile and he set down a punnet of cherries in front of her.  
  
"No. Thank you." She shook her head with a mumble. Bucky looked at her for an explanation. "I don't want to eat your food. I'm already here as an unconventional -and possibly slightly unvoluntary- guest, you don't need to--" The girl was starting to get freaked out by that glare. It was commanding, not exactly scary but just held that air of warning that she should probably just shut up and listen to what he was saying. Her hand gently reached out, eyes flicking up as if he would yank it away in a cruel jest, before picking out a single cherry and beginning to nibble on it. "Thank you," She remembered to say as she ate. They were seedless, so there was no worrying about where to spit the seed, but she did push the stem in her pocket instead of asking where the bin was.  
  
Bucky nodded, satisfied, and tried not to stare at her while she ate but kept her in his peripherals just in case. She could still try something. He could be falling for a trap. After all, who just barges into someone's apartment like that? Apparently this girl did.  
  
"What should I call you, mister?" And apparently this girl liked talking a lot.  
  
"Don't," He grunted back. There was no point sharing names, fake or not, she wouldn't be here for long and he didn't need to waste the safety net he'd set up for himself when moving in here.  
  
"Don't. Is that a first name or a last name, Mister Don't?" She attempted to smile and chuckle at her own joke. Bucky didn't seem to get the sense of humour. She dropped her smile and gaze to the floor, fingers fiddling with another cherry stem. "Not a big fan of small talk then? That's okay."  
  
The ex-soldier felt calmer when she appeared to get the hint he didn't want to talk. But he couldn't help but feel slightly blameworthy that she looked so put out with his blunt disregard for her trying to be friendly. "What do I call you, then?" He asked her the same question.  
  
She looked up at him, opened her mouth but hesitated. He waited for her to consider her words before sighing and slumping in her seat. "I don't like my name," She admitted quietly, picking out another cherry from the punnet. "You pick one for me. Call me whatever you want. Except for bad names because that's just mean and uncalled for. And I'll probably hit you." She gave him the challenge, and Bucky was slightly shocked that she would want him of all people to try and pick something like that. She'd barely known him ten minutes. But it also kind of made sense. A stranger who knows nothing about you picking your new name? No bias. Freeing.  
  
The girl reached for her backpack and unzipped it. Bucky tensed up as his mind informed him where the nearest weapon was but felt a little dense when she only pulled out a book, oblivious to his internal panic. He spied the cover, a black and red design swirling over it, and recognised the title from a few old fairytales he'd been told as a child.  
  
_Little Red Riding Hood._  
  
From what he remembered of the story, it was a small child wandering through the forest who met a wolf who pretended to be her friend and eventually tricked her and ate her. His skin itched as his mind helpfully supplied the comparison to his current situation with the brunette as Little Red and himself in place of the wolf. He screwed his eyes shut, pushing the thoughts to the back of his mind as far as they would go. This wasn't like that. He was trying to help. He opened his eyes again and the girl was sat unaware, flicking the next page over. He sighed and just tried not to think too much.  
  
The hour passed stiffly. Bucky almost started to feel self-conscious about the apartment, and his hands itched to start clearing things away that covered the counter. Not that much covered the counters, just a few old newspapers and used mugs he hadn't gotten around to cleaning yet. And neither one got closer to each other than the lengthways of the dining table. She may have looked carefree and lost deep into her story but he didn't miss the quick glances up at him every so often as she checked he wasn't doing anything sinister. He didn't blame her. He was doing the same thing, making himself look busy with wiping the counters with a random cloth.  
  
Eventually, it had been the hour, and Bucky checked his watch. "It should be safe now." He announced out loud, then had to repeat himself louder when the girl didn't break from her reverie. She cleared her throat, standing up from the chair and tucking it back under the table neatly.  
  
"Thank you, Mister Don't." She gave an awkward bow with a small grin. It was soon lost to the stare she received in response as she threw her coat back on, picked up her backpack and headed to the door with quick steps. "Thank you, again. Bye," She said with a final nod before disappearing out of the door. Bucky walked over and locked it behind her, listening to her thudding footsteps growing steadily further away before disappearing completely. He let out a long breath he hand;t realised he'd been holding and leaned on the door.  
  
After a few moments, he twisted back to the table to grab the empty punnet of cherries to throw away when he saw something else on the table. Her book. Shit. She'd forgotten it.  
  
He took careful steps over to the item, reaching out tentatively before picking up the book to examine it. The pages were well worn, the upper corners bent from frequent reading. The cover was crinkled and the spine was in a poor state, but it looked overall treated well for something that seemed to be years old. There were no library dates in the front so she did own it. Or perhaps she stole it. It wasn't an impossible thought considering what she knew about her from their meeting, though the text was in English.  
  
She'd probably want it back. Did she really leave it on accident? Or was he falling for a trick of some kind, being lured outside looking for a girl he didn't know the name of to give her back something she'd left in his apartment when hiding from men trying to find her?  
  
Screw it. He squeezed his jacket pocket to check his blade was still there, holding the book in one hand and grabbing his keys, he headed for the door to chase the girl down and return the story.


	2. Alley

The stairs belonging to the apartment building were rickety and old. Bucky had the feeling they wouldn't last much longer without breaking, and the landlord to the building couldn't give any less of a shit about the conditions. Not that that wasn't expected since he'd picked this area for a reason: no questions past money and duration of stay. The upsides of being in a city where the law was lax.  
  
Reaching the bottom step and gripping the railing tightly when the wood splintered under his foot, he took a second to look at the book in his other hand. The pages were well worn, the upper corners bent from frequent reading. The cover was crinkled and the spine was in a poor state, but it looked overall treated well for something that seemed to be years old. There were no library dates in the front so she did own it. Or perhaps she stole it. It wasn't an impossible thought considering what she knew about her from their meeting, though the text was in English.  
  
He shook the thoughts away and continued to the door, opening to an alleyway that lead out onto the main street.  
  
"--s_treet rat. Nowhere to run now." _Bucky stopped with one foot out of the door. He recognised the voice of the man at his door an hour before cutting through the air in a threatening hiss. Bucky blinked, brow furrowing under his cap, then rounded the door to come upon the sight of three men: two holding either arm of a familiar brunette to the wall of the alley and the third, the stall owner he'd had the pleasure of speaking with before, with a switchblade unfolded in his grasp. The door swung itself closed behind him. "You know what we do to thieves around here?" The stall man asked in English, stepping closer to the girl pushing herself further into the wall and struggling in either of his accomplices' grips.  
  
"Let me go. I'll pay for what I stole. You're hurting me." She winced as she attempted to wrestle her reddening wrists from the men who were unconcerned with her pain.  
  
_"American dogs. All the same." _The boss muttered with a shake of his head.  
  
_"Boss."_ The shaggy-haired accomplice spoke up, nodding towards Bucky standing and watching the ordeal. He had been the one knocking on the door across the hall while he was being questioned.  
  
The brunette glanced over, half relieved and half scared he was with the men threatening to gut her. "Guess an hour wasn't long enough, huh?" She said with a breathy smile, quickly swiped from her lips when the man holding her left wrist twisted a little too far.  
  
The boss, however, seemed more concerned by her words. "_You _were _hiding her?" _He accused with grit teeth, turning with the knife to Bucky but wisely staying half an alley away from the ex-assassin glaring lightly at the girl.  
  
"...Sorry." She muttered, dropping her head to stare at the ground instead.  
  
The boss scoffed, taking a step towards the stranger. _"We're the same people, you and I. Why care about this street rat?"  
  
"She was just a hungry child. Let her apologise and then let her go. There's no point attracting attention." _Bucky kept his voice neutral, peripherals trained on the alley entryway in case anyone happened to pass by and notice the commotion. Whether they'd actually do something about it was another matter entirely, but fewer witnesses were preferable if this got violent.  
  
"I know you're speaking a different language and everything but did you just call me a child?" The female narrowed her eyes at him, and Bucky almost laughed at the absurdity that that was the thing she picked out of the conversation to be bothered by. "For your information-"  
  
"Quiet!"The boss hissed, twisting around to her. The girl's brow furrowed momentarily, and then she was stamping on his foot like a pissed off toddler. The man nearly dropped his blade with a pained yell, juggling it before grasping the metal tight again with a low growl. _"You'll pay for that." _He raised the blade to her face.  
  
_"Stop."_ Bucky took a step forward.  
  
_"Back off, stranger." _The man grunted back. When Bucky didn't move an inch, he snapped his fingers at one of his friends and gestured vaguely to the ex-soldier. _"Get rid of him."_  
  
The lackey with the shaggier hair nodded, releasing his hold on the girl before approaching the strange man daring to interrupt. He didn't get far before ending up an unconscious mess in the pile of trash bags by the building's dumpster with a clatter.  
  
Bucky turned back to the men and girl standing there staring widely at him, his head tilted and eyes squinting. _"I told you to stop." _  
  
The second accomplice moved, leaving the brunette frozen in place against the wall, managing to get a swing in before getting the metal arm in the gut, a punch on the cheek with the flesh hand, and then a kick up the ass sending him scampering out of the alleyway with frightened eyes and his tail between his legs.  
  
The soldier's eyes fell back on the girl and remaining stall owner gaping back at him, and the latter started backing away. _"Okay. Okay!" _The boss stumbled towards the alley entrance with his wavering hands, still gripping his blade which appeared much smaller now than at first glance. _"Take her. She's yours. But just know you're looking out for a filthy American street rat. And know that we know you now." _  
  
_"Is that a threat?" _Bucky took one step towards the man and he scurried off out into the main street, disappearing within a second, not bothering to pick up his unconscious friend from the trashbags probably in need of a few icepacks.  
  
The young girl and the strange man were left alone in the alley together, silence thicker in the air than the scent of smoke. Neither quite sure what to say, eyes avoiding one another now that there was no obstruction between them. Bucky was surprised she hadn't escaped during the commotion, she certainly looked wary enough of him like she was ready to run. Instead, she broke the silence, "Is that my book?" She asked barely above a whisper, gesturing to the item Bucky had yet to drop, even when dealing with the stall owners.  
  
"You left it upstairs," He answered.  
  
"Sorry," She muttered out an apology and Bucky shook his head, dismissively. A beat of silence. "Thank you for that. I mean, I probably could've handled it myself but thank you." She readjusted the backpack on her shoulders, one of the straps now ripped and useless so she held it at an awkward angle.  
  
Bucky finally shifted his gaze to look at her properly, taking in her rumpled appearance and held out the book with his right hand for her to grab. Her eyes flicked to it, then up to him. He could see the trepidation in her eyes after what she had just seen him do, she had been staring at him the entire time while he dealt with the men holding her to the wall. But she hadn't run away. And that gave Bucky back a little of his confidence that he might actually be able to help someone.  
  
She reached out with a cautious hand, eyes never leaving him, and grasped the book, taking it back into her arms with a nod. Bucky nodded too. "Where are you going now?" He prompted to try and kill the tension a little.  
  
"Anywhere but here. The train station, probably." The girl tapped the book against her palm, chewing her lip as she thought out her options. That was where she had been heading originally before getting jumped in the alley.   
  
"You're bleeding again," Bucky noted her shoulder, the rip now even larger than before, and quickly dampening with crimson.  
  
"Yeah." She nodded, tone despondent.  
  
"You should put ice on those. There'll be bruises."  
  
"Yeah." She nodded again.  
  
Bucky glanced around the alley, eyes flicking over the mossy brick and the still body lying beside the dumpster sure to wake up soon.  
  
"Do you want to come to clean up in the bathroom again?" He asked abruptly, then taken aback at himself at his own words.  
  
"I've more than outstayed my welcome." She shook her head, taking her first step towards the alley entrance, looking ready to run away and straight back into trouble.  
  
"I want to help."   
  
"Why?" Her sights snapped to him, stopping dead in her walk, forest green eyes cutting like glass into his calm and relaxed front. It almost jolted him at the sudden shift in emotion in her eyes. All he'd seen up to now was her fear. This was the first hint she could feel anything else, and he would take that over her fear.  
  
"I don't know," Bucky answered honestly.  
  
The girl squinted at him, suspicious and rightly so. He didn't really know what to say, it wasn't as if this was a common situation he would find himself in with another person. Or perhaps with that blond man...   
  
"No one else here will." Bucky decided on finally. And that at least was the truest thing he could tell her. If she didn't understand that from what had just happened here then there was no hope for her surviving for much longer in this city should she continue without help. And he was mostly willing to give her that help.  
  
The brunette kept her eyes squinted, sceptical, and staring him up and down as if he would jump her right there and then. It took her a few moments of silent thought to reply. "Fine. But if you turn out to be a serial killer or something like that, I don't care about the weird frickin' kung-fu shit you just pulled, I'm running screaming to the police." She hugged her book to her chest with a firm nod.  
  
Bucky nodded back softly. "Fair enough." Though he didn't really have the heart to tell her that that wouldn't do any good. For more reasons than one.


	3. One night

In the time it took the brunette to heal up her shoulder and calm her aftershocks of the anxiety of being saved in the alley to wear off, Bucky had made himself a coffee and rearranged the counter twice. Not that there was much on it to begin with but he just felt the need to keep his hands busy. What was he thinking, inviting her into the house again? This could still be an elaborate setup. Who knew who the hell this girl was? He didn't even know her fucking name.   
  
Did he want to know her name? She still didn't know his. He wondered if it was safer to stay as Mister Don't for now until he was certain that HYDRA or SHIELD or some other group wasn't planning to break down the door and sedate him. He was never going back to that place. He didn't have the strength.  
  
The door opened ahead of him, and deja-vu flashed through his mind as the girl walked out of the bathroom, coat folded over one arm and her shirt sleeve completely ripped off - wet with water and blood. Except that this time, there was a proper bandage poking out from the rip. Bucky had told her she could use the medical equipment in the cabinet, and though he expected her to ignore his insistence, she'd done as asked.   
  
"Thanks. Again," She mumbled, looking down at her coat that would need to be stitched up properly on the left shoulder and cleaned thoroughly to get the crimson stains out.  
  
"Is everything okay?" He nodded to her shoulder.  
  
"Should be. Better than plugging it up with tissue paper." She forced a polite smile, and Bucky could see the skin just underneath her jaw would soon be bruising up from an injury inflicted before finding the scene. And around either of her wrists would be matching purple hues too.   
  
His teeth set at the thought. Scumbags. And they could get away with it here.  
  
"Do you want anything? Food or drink?" He pushed the thoughts away, picking up his steaming coffee off the counter.  
  
"No thank you. I've had enough cherries that I'm sure my tongue is red... redder. Wait, is a tongue red or pink? I mean I suppose it depends on the person but its usually pink, right? Kinda rosy like. In which case my original statement was correct." She fumbled over her words, mumbling to herself more than actually talking to Bucky. She paused, blinking, before looking back at the ex-soldier with a shy smile. "Sorry. Tangent."  
  
Bucky had paused midway to sipping, shaking his head minutely before actually taking a sip. "Drink?"  
  
"No."  
  
"I have a tap if you just want water. Can't do anything to it straight out of the tap." Bucky recognised the reason for her hesitation.  
  
"I have a bottle." She pulled the crinkled plastic out of her backpack to show him, half full with some weak red liquid. Cordial. Hopefully.  
  
He didn't have to order her this time, when he nodded to the seat she'd sat in last time, she ducked her head and walked to it, sitting while he remained leaning back on the counter the distance of the table away. He held his mug with one hand, the other folded over his chest. "What's your story? How did you get yourself into that mess downstairs?"  
  
She played with the buttons of her folded coat. "I told you that already."  
  
"Events leading up to it, then. Why were you even stealing in the first place?"  
  
"Why do you want to know?" She tried shrugging him off.  
  
"I want to help."  
  
"You said that," She said softly. And when Bucky didn't reply, she sucked on the inside of her cheek, thinking. Finally, she opened her mouth again. "To spare you a lot of the boring details, I lost my wallet on the train coming up here. A stupid mistake, I know, but otherwise I would have paid for that food I tried to steal. I'm not a kleptomaniac or a street rat or anything. But I was just so hungry and I didn't know what else to do. If I told any stall owner here what had happened with my wallet and asked for help or a handout, by the looks of my experience here so far, I would have been kicked into the mud and called a heathen."  
  
"This isn't a good place for miles around. Why are you here?"  
  
"Holiday."  
  
"In an area like this?" Bucky could feel the scepticism in his own voice.  
  
"It's one of those adventure holidays. Explore for your own entertainment." She picked at the rip on her coat sleeve, not looking up.  
  
"How long have you been here?" He tried to keep her talking.  
  
"A few hours. I stopped here to get something to eat but then lost my wallet. My ticket is still valid for another few stops on the line though, since its an all-day-use ticket."  
  
"Are you heading anywhere in particular?"  
  
"Not really." She shook her head.  
  
Bucky folded his arms, putting his mug down and chewing the inside of his lip. He understood her situation, but she was being vague. He would do the same if not censor his story even more if he was talking to someone he didn't know that well. But he still wanted to know, "Why are you here?"  
  
"I... I don't know, mister." Her eyes flicked back up to him, doe-like and honest. An uncommon thing in the people he'd met in the last decade at least. "Why are you here?" She asked him, leaning forward on the table to rest her arms on it, crossed.  
  
"I live here," He said.  
  
"You don't seem to fit in with the usual locals. Plus, a Brooklyn guy down here all alone? What happened, a stag-weekend with the boys gone wrong?" She chuckled awkwardly at an attempt at humour. The soldier just stood and stared. Okay then.  
  
The conversation seemed to trail off there. Neither desiring to ruin the calm lying in the air, a thinly veiled cover on the stiff atmosphere that was simmering underneath.  
  
"What happens now?" The girl broke the silence, starting to question why she'd accepted sitting down after fixing herself up in the bathroom and not just run out of the apartment again.  
  
"You were heading to the train station." Bucky brought them back on topic.  
  
"Yeah. By the time I stop off in..." She fumbled around with the front pocket of her backpack, producing a crumpled slip of paper and squinting at it. "...somewhere I can't pronounce, it will be really early tomorrow morning."  
  
"You shouldn't take the train at night. Especially if you don't know where you're going," Bucky warned.  
  
"Well, I'm going to have to or my ticket will expire and I can't get another because remember what happened to my wallet?" She gave a dismissive shrug. "Maybe someone handed it in at the station," She thought, then scoffed, "Oh, who am I kidding? Who hands in a wallet at a train station? And even if it was handed in I doubt my money or card would be in there." Her hands ran through her hair, tugging at the strands as if it would relieve her stress. "This is a mess."  
  
"Why are you travelling through places you don't know? Where are you heading to as a final destination?" The man questioned, head tilting.  
  
"Anywhere but where I am." The girl replied, blandly.  
  
Bucky tried not to sigh. "Is no one waiting for you? Are you visiting family?"  
  
"I don't want to talk about this."  
  
"If you don't talk, I can't help you."  
  
She swivelled in her seat to look at him. "Look, Mister Don't, I don't really know you that well, and even though you may have 'saved' me in that alley from those guys looking to hurt me I'm not spilling my life story to you." Bucky chose not to helpfully inform her she had kind of already done that anyway. "You could be part of those guys, just luring me into a false sense of security ready to do horrible stuff to me. And fuck me if I need help from authorities because apparently, according to you, no one around here cares." She next to snapped at him. The cracks in her shy demeanour became more apparent, exhaustion slipping through and into her voice and expression instead of a guarded quiet front. She seemed to pause, think on her words, and the bravado disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. "Sorry." Her tone swiftly switched to passive and apologetic.  
  
"I get it." _More than you know,_ Bucky thought, glumly.  
  
She sighed, slumping against her seat. "And if I don't get the train tonight then what can I do? I can't pay for a hotel to stay in. I'll end up sleeping on the streets and its supposed to rain later. Even then, I won't be able to leave without buying another ticket, and stealing a ticket is harder than stealing a plum." She started to pick at the threads of her coat again.  
  
Bucky didn't like the mental image that appeared from her description. She definitely couldn't have been older than twenty, and she was already hurt from an hour ago with no promise it wouldn't happen again. The weather might not have even been the worst thing she could face if she spent the night on the street. And how thin that jacket in her lap looked...  
  
"Do you not have anyone you can call? Friends and family? I don't have a landline but there's a phonebooth not far from here." He nodded in the general direction of the market out of the window.  
  
He had been concerned she would shake her head, and she did. Stuck in a foreign place with no shelter, no money, and no one she knew she could ask for help. She was fucked, no two ways about it.  
  
But maybe she didn't have to be. Or at least, she didn't have to be Bucky's problem to worry about for long. "What if I offered to put you up in a hotel room for the night? And then tomorrow we can go to the train station and put you on a train to wherever it was you were heading." Money had never been a problem for him, HYDRA not having been exactly secret about their funding and safehouses. He'd hit a few before making his official escape, and was pretty much set for life by now. Not that he was happy how he did it.  
  
"What?" The girl looked up at him, brow furrowing. Bucky shrugged, openly. "No. I can't ask you to do that." She shook her head, eyes falling to her lap.  
  
"I'm offering. You can't spend the night on the street alone how you are."  
  
"I'll just hide under a stall tent or something. No need to take up more space." She shrugged, arms folding over herself and sinking in the chair as if to demonstrate how much space she didn't need to take up. It made her look uncomfortably small in the chair, and Bucky took notice of how thin she actually was under that jacket.  
  
"After what just happened?" He asked with a flat look. The girl pressed her lips into a thin line, looking down. "Look, I get that you're in a place you don't know talking to someone you don't trust and you might not think I'm trying to help, and you don't have to do anything you don't want to. But don't be stupid about it."  
  
Her head snapped up when he indirectly called her stupid. She opened her mouth as if to argue, then shut it again just as quick. "You don't look in such a good position to pay for a hotel room." Her eyes wandered around the barren apartment. She would have thought the place had no electricity if she hadn't seen the kettle on the counter.  
  
"You're in a worse position." He countered.  
  
The girl had to agree with that. But she still felt a little uncomfortable at the idea. "Are you sure this is okay? I'm sure I can manage by myself."  
  
"It's one night. And I'm _offering_," He reiterated, finishing his coffee and pushing himself off the counter to wash the mug, keeping his side facing the girl and not his back.  
  
The sounds of the tap filled the silence. Bucky jumped as the ceramic clinked against his metal hand where the glove covering it had slid down. He quickly pulled his glove back up, trying to ignore the momentary guilt burning his stomach.  
  
"Okay." She agreed quietly, and he was back to feeling calmer in a second.  
  
Bucky nodded to himself, putting the mug on the side to dry before picking up a towel to dry his hand and glove. "What's your name?" He glanced over his shoulder and she paused, fingers stopping threading the fraying strands of the coat sleeve.  
  
A long pause. "I don't like my name," She said. Then those doe eyes flicked over to him again, catching his gaze under his baseball cap. "You pick a name for me." The girl suggested, phrasing it unlike a request.  
  
Bucky fell quiet, brow furrowing in her direction. But her expression didn't change under his stare, staying relaxed and with that glint of hope in her eyes. Bucky remained silent.  
  
In the passing moments of silence, the brunette reached into her bag again, and as before Bucky tensed, but she only pulled out that book again; the book that had caused most of the trouble for him and lead to him inviting her into his home again. The wolf silhouette on the book cover practically mocked him as it glinted faintly in the daylight illuminating the apartment. It wouldn't last long, however. It was getting later and later in the day and they would have to leave soon if they were to find a hotel not run by a mafia or cartel or trafficking ring. There was one place a little outside the market he could think was probably safe. He'd have to check it out later.  
  
For now, he let the girl sit and read, pulling out his own notebook from a drawer and scribbling down the few memories that had leaked into his mind that day. Most of them, he noticed, had stemmed from meeting the girl at the table. And he wasn't certain whether that was a healthy thing to learn or not.


	4. Tracks

"We should head out before nightfall. The nearest hotel is a half-hour walk from here, and an hour away from the station." Bucky shrugged on a jacket, pulling his cap down at the front. The girl sat a few paces away didn't move, eyes still running across the pages of her book, entranced. He zipped his jacket up and took a cautious step forward to stand somewhere in front of her. He cleared his throat, obnoxiously loudly. "Hello?"  
  
"Yah!" She started, eyes snapping from the book to Bucky with a look. The kind of startled look you give when you only just notice a spider on the wall that's been sat there a while. She shook her head and quickly righted her expression, smiling self-consciously, "Sorry. Lost in thought."  
  
Bucky nodded warily. "We should go now," He repeated slowly, nodding to the door.  
  
"Right." The girl shifted out of her seat and put the book away, sliding into her coat and slinging the backpack over her uninjured shoulder.  
  
Bucky grabbed his keys and wallet, double-checking the apartment before leading the girl to follow out of the door. Remembering to lock it this time, the two traipsed down the stairs together and out into the alleyway, turning onto the street. "This way. Stick close." Bucky took the lead, cutting through the village, glancing over his shoulder every so often to make sure the girl was still following. She was, at a distance, and Bucky would have felt safer about her safety had she stuck closer. But he just prayed nothing would try to reach out and grab her. Or him, for that matter.  
  
They turned another street, this one more barren and dusty, no buildings built before the 2000s in sight. There were groups crowded together, some swapping cigarettes and other dirty looks and glances of knives. Glancing over his shoulder, Bucky could see the images of earlier passing through the girl's mind and slowed down so she would be following ay a closer distance. "Don't look at them. Look forward." He said quietly, her eyes snapping back to him, before looking forward and continuing on quickly at his order.  
  
Reaching the end of the street and changing direction again, the girl mumbled "Nice weather, at least" to the soldier. Bucky glanced up at the sky, clear blue with a sun that gave the illusion of warmth, but happily kept its heat to itself. He hummed in agreement and continued to walk.  
  
The rest of their journey was in silence, sticking close and Bucky's eyes flicking around to make sure no one was staring or following. Luckily, by the end of half an hour, they arrived in front of the hotel he hoped hadn't fallen into the hands of corruption since the last time he'd needed the place. Another check over his shoulder for the girl and no one following, he nodded towards the doors and guided his follower inside up to the reception area.  
  
The brunette followed him inside, hands gripping tight on her bag strap and waiting beside him at the desk. She wasn't sure what he negotiated with the woman behind the desk, a few bits back and forth before he was handing over a couple of bills and received a room key in return. "Single room upstairs. I'll walk you." He didn't bother to pass it over before he was rounding the desk and heading for the stairs.  
  
The girl trailed silently after him through the door and up a single set of rickety stairs to the next floor. Taking a few steps across the creaky landing they stopped in front of _Room 13_. Not foreboding at all.  
  
"Here's your room. You're scheduled to book out by 09:00am tomorrow which is when I will pick you up and walk you to the station." He handed over the metal key with the number scratched into the top.  
  
"I can walk myself." She told him, taking it with an edge of suspicion.  
  
"And what are you going to do when you get to the station?" His eyebrow arched, arms folding.  
  
She worried her bottom lip, glancing away. "Um..."  
  
Bucky hummed flatly. "So, I'll walk you to the station, and I'll pay for your ticket to move you wherever you want to go."  
  
"I don't have anything I could give you in return." The girl turned the key over and over in her hands, eyes falling to the floor with her gut tightening in anxiety. She didn't know him. She didn't know what he could want. But she'd seen what he could do to just a few stall owners and how much unquestionably stronger he was than her. She wouldn't stand a chance.  
  
"I don't want anything from you." He settled her stomach as quickly as it had flown red flags. She blinked up at him, eyes then narrowing slightly in disbelief. He didn't say anything else on the matter, instead opting for, "Be in the reception by 9 and we shouldn't have any problems."  
  
A final nod from the brunette and she was sticking the key in the door, unlocking it and almost expecting an axe murderer to leap out like _'bleh, you thought?'_ and decapitate her. But it was just a normal room. If you didn't count the dead rat in the doorway.  
  
She made a scrunched face at the tiny corpse, and then glanced back up at Bucky.  
  
Bucky moved passed her and into the room without prompting, flicking on the lights with thankfully worked and doing a quick survey under the bed and in the closet. He even did a few discreet checks for bugs and listening devices and the like which were now automatic to him, but thankfully found nothing. Glancing to the girl as if to say_ 'satisfied?'_, she nodded and he settled for that. With nothing else to say, Bucky walked past her without another look but kicking the dead rat into the hallway as a last gesture before shutting the door and walking away.  
  
Left on her own the girl faced the room with a long, tired sigh, dumping her backpack on the bed. She ran her hands over her face, fingers pressing into her eyes. It had been a hell of a day, For everyone involved, it had been one hell of a day. But deciding to make the most of her situation, she pulled out her sleep clothes from the backpack and set them on one side before retreating to the bathroom to wash up.  
  
Pulling the string she was thankful wasn't an alarm, the light flickered pitifully to life illuminating the room. A shower, a toilet, a sink, and a single towel hanging from the side were all that would be found, plus a few hotel supplies that looked to belong to that dead rat from before judging by the size. There was a large mirror above the sink, however, though once she met her own eyes in it, she dragged them away just as quickly with a wince, and turned on the sink faucet.  
  
Her thoughts mimicked the flooding water. Today had been shit from start to finish.  
  
It was stupid to have left her wallet on the train, then the attempt at food theft to be chased around a city she didn't understand, then came the open apartment door and the stranger that spoke in words she understood. A ray of hope or the bogeyman in disguise? Who knew?  
  
The stranger was nice, though. But scary. His body language was guarded, eyes dark and skittery like a junkie. She'd gotten a good look at his eyes, though - it wasn't drugs affecting his behaviour. But he seemed on edge for more reasons than her.  
  
Stripping off her coat and laying it on the counter, she got a good look at the bruises and cuts left on her body. Her shoulder seemed okay for now with the bandage wrap, not bleeding through. She glanced down and wrapped her hand around the markings on her right wrist. Her hands were smaller than the man who had held her, so the beginnings of purple peeked out around her fingers. But as she squeezed, she sighed, the feeling grounding. It burned, and after a few seconds, she let go again, appreciating the lingering tingle.  
  
With a shake of her head, she ran the faucet for a moment before splashing her face with cold water and patting her face with the single towel. She looked like shit but what was new? Her hair was windblown and sticking up like static, her eyes tired and puffy, her skin dry and pale and her overall look just generally put-out. But, what did she care to do about it?  
  
The brunette stopped the faucet, returned to the bedroom and unzipped her backpack, pulling out her phone and charging wire with the adaptor. She plugged it into the wall then into her phone, the empty battery sign flashing onscreen as she rested it on the bedside table. Next taking out her book, she sat resting against the headboard and read until her phone buzzed back to life and she glanced over.  
  
No messages, no missed calls, no notifications. Good.  
  
Finally, changing into her bedclothes, the girl set an alarm for the morning and snuggled down into the thin covers, leaving the dim bedside lamp on beside her charging phone to try and make sleeping a little easier.  
  
  
By the time 9am rolled around, she was awake, showered and dressed, reading in the lobby with her key handed in. Only glancing up when someone approached her, she felt oddly surprised when Bucky was indeed standing there right on time.  
  
"Morning." She nodded.  
  
"Let's go." Bucky was already walking away, this time, she noticed, he carried a backpack with him too.  
  
It took an hour to walk to the station, twisting and turning down what seemed to be endless streets and making the girl slightly skeptical once again about this man's intentions, until finally, the station came into sight. The brunette shouldn't have been so concerned since she'd already been here, but last time she was here her navigation through the city _was _a little rushed.  
  
"Where were you heading?" Bucky asked as they approached the desk to stand in the line for tickets. The girl reached into her bag, pulling out the same crumpled paper from the day before and squinting at it. It took a few poor attempts to pronounce the place name before Bucky interrupted, "Do you happen to speak any other languages than English?"  
  
A pause. "German. I grew up in a bilingual house. Mom was from Queens but dad-"  
  
"Have you been to Germany before?" He pressed as the line got shorter and they stepped forward.  
  
"We lived in Berlin for a year when I was ten." She offered back, shyly.  
  
Bucky nodded tightly and talked with the man behind the booth. Sliding over money the same way he had at the hotel and being given back one printed ticket in return before moving aside and holding it out to her along with a few bills to help cover any other emergency expenses she could have on the way. "One ticket to Berlin for a female passenger. It will be a five-hour train ride from here," He told her.  
  
"Remember I said _'when I was ten'_." She reiterated, taking the ticket and money without a fight and scanning it over. Not that she could read the writing.  
  
"At least there you will be able to understand what's going on around you. And its 'anywhere but here'." He mimicked her words from their conversation and the girl pressed her lips into a thin line. Bucky led her out onto the platform, checking the oversized display clock handing from the rafters. "The train should arrive in twenty minutes. Go to the bathroom, and get a bottle of water before you leave," He sai.  
  
"Sure thing, _dad_." She mumbled under her breath mockingly, but supersoldier hearing meant he heard, and she moved down the platform and towards the bathroom sign before he could say anything about it.  
  
Bucky shook his head, glancing up and down the platform before doing a double-take at a bench just a few feet away. There was a blond sitting there, no one thought he recognised but who was staring at him until Bucky met his eyes, then he was quickly looking away to his newspaper. Bucky squinted, but didn't say anything, and decided he should probably use the bathroom before he left the station anyway.  
  
Twenty minutes later both the girl and the soldier were standing on the platform as the train rolled slowly into the station. Giving a quick glance to Bucky, the brunette stepped on board and went to find a seat.  
  
Deciding he'd done as much as he could, Bucky turned around and began walking out of the station when he stopped. His eyes locked with that same blond from before, no longer at his perch on the bench, but talking with the ticket guard, who glanced over at Bucky too. A few moments of eye contact and not hearing what the two were discussing, still looking at him, Bucky got that itch at the base of his neck. Something wasn't right. He took a step backwards. And then the blond was moving forwards, towards him. Bucky swung around and jogged back towards the train who's doors were quickly closing. He broke into a sprint and just managed to jump on and not get himself caught between the doors as they shut behind him, leaving the blond chasing him to only just reach and knock on the doors as the train started up and began pulling out of the station.  
  
Bucky relaxed, sighing through the nose as the train began to shunt and shift, rolling slowly away from the platform and onto the track for the next city. He turned to the carriage he'd managed to jump into, looking around for empty seats.  
  
The first thing he does is catch sight of the brunette sitting down on her own, already endorsed back in her book. But as if sensing she was being watched, the girl looked up to catch his eye and he took a few steps closer, finding a seat across from her and nodding.  
  
"Oh, hey. I thought you weren't coming with." She furrowed her brow, legs crossed over and book open in her hands.  
  
"Change of plans." He said.  
  
"But don't you live here?"  
  
"Change of plans," He said again.  
  
She seemed to want to ask more, but refrained, and rolled her shoulders, relaxing into her seat and continuing to read again. "Company will be nice, at least," She said, lightly, with the hint of a smile playing at the corner of her mouth.


	5. Ma'am

Two hours passed swiftly by along with various stops on the line when Bucky finally got up to stretch his legs. Only when he'd stepped onto the platform did he realise he wasn't alone.  
  
"Do you need the bathroom or something?" The girl had followed him off the train, and he turned round in surprise. Mostly at himself since he hadn't noticed her until she spoke.  
  
"You can get back on." He nodded back to the train who's doors were signalling they were about to close.  
  
"I need the bathroom too." She replied softly with a shrug.  
  
"Didn't you go before?"  
  
"Yeah, but then I drank that water bottle." She gave him a pointed look as if keeping her hydrated was something to be at fault for.  
  
He sighed, watching the train behind her start rolling out of the station along with his plans of isolation and checked the overhanging clock on the platform. "Next one is in twenty minutes. Do whatever you want."  
  
The brunette rushed off towards the bathroom and then disappeared through the doorway.  
  
Bucky, on the other hand, bought himself a hot sandwich from the cafe before sitting on the edge of a clear platform bench, overlooking the tracks.  
  
It was halfway into the sandwich the idea that he'd just made a decision there was no easy turning back from started kicking in. He didn't like second-guessing himself but maybe that had been a rash move at the station. He didn't know who that was, what they wanted, or if he just happened to catch the person's eye at the wrong time and assume. But then that was all the more reason to have gotten on the train. He'd been in too many close calls like that before, and he decided it was worth the risk.  
  
There was a safe house in Berlin, Bucky knew. It should be devoid of anyone else and would be a good place to hunker down until he decided to move again. And perhaps make sure that his new impromptu travelling buddy didn't get herself into more trouble than she was worth. Again. Not that he really cared what happened to her after they got to Germany. She wasn't his responsibility after that -not that she really was now- but he still held out a little hope that he was helping her by getting her to Berlin.  
  
Bucky interrupted himself when he realised he had begun chewing the paper wrapper of his sandwich, shaking his head and spitting it out before balling up and tossing the paper in a nearby trashcan. He picked up his backpack, double-checking his gloves, and made his way back outside to the platform, taking position on one end of a green-painted bench.  
  
Not long after did the brunette appear, easing herself to sit down on the opposite end of the bench, clutching something in both hands. She held out the red and white striped bag of some sort of toffee variety. "Do you want one?" Bucky shook his head. He could practically smell the sugar from his end of the bench. "Do you have some for yourself, then?" He shook his head again. The brunette decided she probably wasn't going to get much else out of him and so just pulled out her second sweet and started chewing. It was the first time they'd sat down for longer than two minutes and Bucky hadn't seen that book in her hands giggling at him from the sidelines. "These are really sticky. I'm gonna lose teeth chewing these things." She mumbled around a mouthful of the taffy concoction, tongue smacking against the roof of her mouth - loud even with her mouth closed. She took out a few to put in her pocket, then rolled up the striped paper bag and stuffed it away in her backpack. She managed to forcefully swallow the rest of her mouthful less than gracefully before talking again. "Usually I prefer hard-boiled stuff or sherbet but they didn't have much of a selection back there. Do you have a preference?"  
  
"I don't have a sweet tooth." Bucky could hear the faint sound of laughter in the back of his mind as the words left his mouth. Someone from his past apparently begged to differ, but he couldn't remember the last time he took the simple pleasure of enjoying a few sweets or anything else but bland food and supplements to survive.  
  
"Everyone has a sweet tooth for something," The girl replied, her tone ridiculously matter-of-fact.  
  
He glanced at her, then back to the train tracks with a non-committal hum.  
  
Ten minutes later they were both back onboard the train and travelling towards Berlin. Bucky watched the sky out of the window as it slowly began growing darker. The problem with travelling between timezones was it would be nearing sunset by the time they stopped off in Berlin, and Bucky was inclined to think about how the girl would spend her night. Perhaps he could set her up in another hotel before leaving for his safehouse, then they would part ways officially. She could probably pick up a job in waitressing or something and though Bucky didn't necessarily have to work, new ID's might be a wise choice to get.  
  
_"Tickets please,"_ The heavy, echoing voice of fate called out to the train cart.  
  
Bucky blinked, suddenly remembering he hadn't purchased one either before he left or at the last stop. It had completely slipped his mind. So as the conductor began making his way down the train, passengers around him began shuffling around in bags and standing to search their coat pockets. In a moment, he was on his feet, wandering down the carriage and brushing against a few people before reaching the back door, standing close to the parted open window pretending to catch his breath, his hand fiddling with the slip of paper newly acquired. He glanced down.  
  
**_"Potsdam, Germany"_**. That was okay. That was the stop after Berlin for this train.  
  
Someone cleared their throat beside him. _"Ticket, Sir."_ The outstretched palm was calloused to match the gruff voice that demanded his ticket in a foreign language. Not yet close enough to Germany to be German. A quick glance up at the conductor before handing over his ticket to be inspected. He waited, keeping relaxed before his ticket was marked and handed back over with a small huff. _"Have a safe journey. **Ma'am**."_  
  
Bucky internally burned, chagrined, praying it didn't show in his expression. But the man had not called him up on the sudden gender swap he'd done, quickly gliding by onto the next person. The glance they shared told him he knew, but it shouldn't have surprised Bucky that the man wouldn't say anything with the amount of shady stuff already going on around here.   
  
And he'd just _had _to pick a female ticket, hadn't he? Across the carriage, he could see the girl raising an eyebrow at him and he slowly made his way back over to his previous seat, past the gruff man and a hurriedly searching businesswoman insisting she bought her ticket was but it had suddenly disappeared.  
  
He slid back into his seat in the booth with the girl looking at him with a tilted head, her own marked ticket still out in her hand. She seemed to be holding back something, and Bucky quickly surmised it was a giggle. "Ma'am?" She was biting on her lip to unsuccessfully stifle her giggles.  
  
"I thought you didn't understand the language," He grunted at her.  
  
"I've picked up things here and there." She decided not to tell him of the early morning translation scrolling she had done to try and familiarise herself with the local lingo, just in hopes she wouldn't get caught in a misunderstanding again.  
  
Either way, he accepted the response and the two fell back into a silent train journey into Berlin.  
  
  
He could remember select memories in Germany, most were previous missions and assignments dotted around the country, but his fall and awakening beside the Danube river was the one that recurred the most. _"Sergeant Barnes... the procedure has already started. You are to be the new fist of HYDRA."_ That icy voice gripped at his spine, and his metal hand fisted by his side. Fucking Zola. Fucking his body up. Fucking with his head. Now he was left scrambling for pieces of his memory like a stray alley cat scouring for scraps. Like those cats that blond guy used to try again and again to feed and befriend regardless of how many times they'd scratched him for it. Honestly, the amount of time spent bandaging his poor hands and wrists that ripped up like wet tissue paper under those claws was... well, he couldn't really remember exactly how much time, but he had the feeling it was pretty damn long when all put together. He just had to put them together. He had to-  
  
"Mister!"  
  
Bucky's head snapped up and barely missed grazing the lamppost in front of him, coming within inches of colliding with the metal. He blinked, looking around to see he was standing on the Berlin Train Platform and had been walking without thinking, and the brunette stood beside him looking similarly wide-eyed had saved him from a quick-to-fade bruise on the forehead.  
  
"You okay?" Her voice was uneasy, eyes flicking between him and the lamppost. He cleared his throat, taking a step back and turning to her, giving a curt nod. "You... sure?" She didn't seem convinced. He wouldn't either if roles were reversed. But with another nod, the girl thankfully left his idle thoughts alone and glanced up and down the platform, rocking back and forth on the feet. "Been a while since I've been here. Not much has changed though."  
  
Bucky turned to head through the station and onto the main street, handing over his passport and ticket and not giving an excuse as to why he got off before his stop, then hearing the patter of boots following quickly after him. The sky was glowing orange as the sun began to set, and his mind quickly mapped out the nearest safehouse and hotel. The safehouse was quite the walk away - he could order a cab. But the closest safest hotel he knew was only a few blocks away. Looking down at the girl standing dutifully a few steps to the side of him, pulling her torn coat tighter around her at the nippy air, he decided they might as well stick together this time. "There's a hotel not far from here, that direction. I'll get you a room for the night then we're parting ways. Agreed?" He looked down the few inches shorter she was.  
  
"Thanks." She didn't argue that time. He was silently pleased, and the two began walking in the direction he pointed.  
  
On the way, he noticed how her eyes lit up with a distant familiarity as she studied the streets and nearby buildings. He hoped that was enough to get her comfortable here, or maybe for long enough until she moved on to wherever she was going next. She hadn't specified where she was supposed to be going other than the place she couldn't pronounce, and what the girl did from here on out was none of his business though he couldn't completely stave his curiosity. What was she doing in a foreign place on her own with no plan and no luggage past her backpack?  
  
The two walked up to the desk, and same as last time, Bucky paid for her room for the night, but this time an additional one for himself. He received two keycards for rooms in exchange, each room beside one another on the second floor. Leading the girl up the stairs and onto the second-floor hallway, Bucky was relieved when it seemed and certainly smelled much nicer than the last hotel he'd put her in. With any luck, there would be no rats this time and a shower that looked safe to get into without contracting something.  
  
Handing over her card at the door, she took it. "Thank you."  
  
Bucky went to unlock his own door, sliding the card into the scanner and pulling it back out again immediately. It flashed a red light, staying locked. He tried it again, the same result. He tried a few more times with the same methodology to be faced with the same outcome. "You- you have to- you have to wait for a second with the card in the... thing." The girl beside him mumbled out as the card and lock grew increasingly frustrating. He was not in the mood for this. Bucky eventually gave up, muttering army-learnt obscenities under his breath and clenching his fists at his sides, leaving the plastic thing sitting in the scanner.  
  
The girl chewed her bottom lip, reaching over and with one flick and pause, the door lock buzzed and a green light flickered on the lock. She quickly pushed the handle down so it wouldn't lock again, and tentatively held out the card to the frustrated hundred-year-old super soldier glaring hatefully at the technology. His eyes flicked between the girl and the card, before he took it between two fingers with a grunted _"Thanks" _and replaced her hand with his on the handle. She nodded, going back to her own room door and disappearing within a second, the lock clicking softly behind her.  
  
Bucky looked back at his own door, pushing it open and flicking the light switch on. It was warm, thankfully, and he was happy after a check that there were no bugs or listening devices in the room so he could shower and rest as peacefully as his mind would allow. The hot water was a blessing, at his old apartment he was lucky if the boiler was working once a week which did nothing for his arm, and he dried himself off before climbing into the bed. It was soft, almost too soft, and he spent a good portion of the night flipping and flopping around trying to find a comfortable position, eventually wearing himself out enough to fall asleep.


	6. Thunder

Waking up the next morning and taking a shower, the girl in the hotel room realised that she didn't know what she was supposed to do after leaving the hotel. Of course, she had been thinking on what she was going to do in Germany all night, almost giddily excited to see the city again like when she was little, but she had not been thinking on what would happen that _morning_, and if Bucky was going to be accompanying her for the remainder of the day.  
  
Drying her hair, she wondered if he was up, or if he had been up for a while by the time it had hit 8:37am as her phone helpfully told her as she brushed out her brunette locks. Maybe he was waiting for her to knock on his door. Or maybe he wasn't even still here at all. He had said they would part ways that morning.  
  
Well, regardless of the ex-assassin next door, she realised her first order of business should be having the cards in her purse cancelled and acquiring a few new ones. At least she knew German, so there wouldn't be lots of awkward hand gestures and horrible mispronunciation that the lovely people behind desks smiled through grit teeth and tried not to snap their pens already tapping impatiently. How people put up with that every day, the girl would never understand. Although, she never understood people anyway. So, dialling the company and sifting through the mess that had been her train journey, requests were made and accounts were saved. Apparently, if anyone had found her purse they had yet to use her cards. A small comfort but a comfort all the same.  
  
Dressing, her eyes glanced at the wall she shared with Bucky. She should say something. Or maybe she should leave it alone. He'd talk to her if he wanted to. But she did want to know what he planned to do that day. Was that being nosy? No. Yes? They were stuck in Germany because of him anyway. She was supposed to be in... that other place on her previous ticket, and he'd made her wait then put her on the train to Berlin instead because "taking the train at night was dangerous". Taking the train was always dangerous, especially surrounded by strangers. So yeah, she wanted to know what this stranger wanted and if she was part of his plans.  
  
Making her decision, she pulled on her jacket, catching the glimpse of the purpling skin branding her wrists like an unfinished tattoo, and sighed. Served her right, she supposed. Heading out of the door, she walked the two paces down the hallway to Bucky's room, and only after lingering for a moment did she rap softly on the door.  
  
There was silence on the other side. Then a thud, soft and hollow. She squinted at the room, hearing no footsteps, before suddenly the door thrust open to reveal a slightly dishevelled looking supersoldier staring at her as if she'd just run over his cat. His eyes were dark with circles, hair mused even after raking his fingers through it and his hat not present, and his long-sleeved sleep shirt rumpled where it clung around his arms. But he held one of them slightly behind his back, the left one.  
  
And she suddenly found herself at a loss of what to say. "I-I didn't know if you were waiting for me or if you were gone already or what you were doing today."  
  
"I said parting ways," he said calmly, his expression softening slightly as he heard the stammer.  
  
"I know but..." she trailed off.  
  
Bucky tilted his head, brow furrowing ever so slightly in a way that made him look as if he was trying to pull the words out of her mind via telepathy. It wouldn't be any more coherent, even if he could do that.  
  
The girl took a breath, shaking it off. "I'm gonna get my cards sorted and stuff today, then." She gestured back to her door, rocking slightly on her feet, quickly wanting out of the conversation she'd oh so awkwardly started.  
  
"Be out of the room by eleven," The soldier grunted before the door closed in her face.  
  
She nodded curtly and headed back into her own room to pack up her stuff, and also steal a few of the miniature toiletries on the way out too.  
  
  
At the desk by eleven, the two shared a last parting glance and a nod at one another before heading out of the door and opposite directions as soon as they hit the sidewalk. Intentional or not, neither seemed to care and just kept walking.  
  
Bucky stopped at a cafe and got a cup of coffee to go. The safehouse was maybe an hour or hour and a half walk away depending on what route he took, and it had been a while since he'd had good coffee. He could remember back before being drafted into the war when he would make coffee at home in a pot and it always tasted like dirt.  
  
No, he didn't. He didn't remember that. It was a whisper in the back of his mind right now, but he knew it would come back eventually. Hopefully. He wanted to cling to any memory he could get.  
  
Sitting on a bench outside, he took in the chilly air of the city and pulled his coat around his tighter and his hat brim down further, nursing the cup in his hands. There were a few missions he'd taken in Germany before, mainly assassinations. And though what he did shouldn't be remembered now considering that had been over thirty years ago to date, it was better to stay on the safe side. Even if no one should recognise him now.  
  
"I thought you wouldn't be hanging around here after we parted."  
  
Bucky looked up to see the girl who was apparently attracted to him like a fucking magnet smiling gently at him. Did she put a tracker in his shoes or something? He'd have to double-check later. "It's a nice city," he replied, shortly, taking a long sip from the cup.   
  
The girl nodded, gently easing herself onto the opposite end of the bench, same as the train station. "Do you have a home here?" she asked, curiously.  
  
He chose to ignore her question, and instead nod to the slip of paper she held between her fingers. "What's that?"  
  
The brunette glanced down as if she'd forgotten it was there. "There's a walking city tour starting in fifteen minutes. It's supposed to take you around all the best landmarks and areas. I thought it would be a nice thing to do to get a feel for the city again and possibly to get more familiar over what's changed since I was twelve." She tapped the blindingly colourful leaflet against her palm with a thoughtful hum.  
  
Bucky recognised what she said. At the station, she mentioned she'd stayed here for a while when she was ten. She must have been twelve when she left then. And now she was... well, he didn't actually know how old she was now. He was still betting for early twenties.  
  
"Wanna come with? You don't have to walk next to me or anything, just wander and tour and stuff," she suddenly asked him, and Bucky found himself slightly inclined to the idea.  
  
"Are you going to be actually listening to the tour or are you going to have your nose in a book for most of it?" He raised an eyebrow with a silent chuckle.  
  
She scowled at him, lips pursed in a pout but her expression shortly twisted up into a smile. "Is that a yes?"  
  
  
Fifteen minutes later, they were walking under a sky of grey with a large group of tourists, following a tour guide with the shrillest voice Bucky had ever heard and a face looking as if she was continually sucking on a lemon, almost folding into itself with her pursed lips. But his focus was barely held by the tour guide and instead either shaking off unwanted memories about the last time he was here or glancing at the girl beside him happily skipping along with the rest of the group. She was wearing that same look like the one when they were walking out of the train station together, eyes lighting up with a distant familiarity, this time that seemed to be growing stronger with each landmark the tour guide described. That was a good sign, Bucky decided, and also oddly sweet.  
  
The wind had started picking up around halfway through the tour when they were just passing out of the busy central capital and into the more rural areas of the city. A quick glance up at the looming grey clouds overhead could inform anyone that they would need a jacket soon if they continued to chance being outside. But no one could have predicted how suddenly the rain started, and also how heavy it would get so quickly afterwards.  
  
The tour group grumbled together, pulling up hoods and unfolding umbrellas, determined to get their fifteen euros worth of tourism and not let a little rain disturb them.  
  
A thunderstorm, however? Yeah, that was going to disturb some people. Namely Bucky after a particularly loud rumble of thunder caught him off-guard in time with a flash of the street lights flickering on suddenly above him.  
  
His chest tightened without a second of warning, and Bucky broke away from the group, stumbling out of the way of a passing car with headlights blinding his eyes and a horn beeping loudly in his ears, causing his head to finch away and almost knock into a brick wall. He reached his hands out, his gloves scraping against the sodden brick wall quickly becoming slippery with the heavy downpour. But it held him up as his heartbeat spiked and he tried to force his breathing to calm down.  
  
Another round of thunder happily helped him fail.  
  
He took a shaky breath in, pushing against the wall he leaned on, almost concerned it would give under his strength, but it stayed standing strong and steady. His eyes searched around for the danger he knew he wouldn't see. It was just pieces of memories creeping back up on him. They always were. And they were always a mess, never a clear picture.  
  
He'd managed to stumble into a sidestreet rather than into the actual street, people jogging past with umbrellas and briefcases held above their heads and completely oblivious to him. As always.  
  
His hat shielded his eyes from the rain, the back of his head pressing into the cool wall holding him up. His thoughts blurred together like watercolours in the rain, dancing to the rhythm of his pulse in his ears. He breathed deeply, fists clenching and unclenching as he kept himself from shaking and tried to focus on calming his runaway heartbeat. But there was something above the noise in his head, louder. No, not louder, closer. And it was a distinct noise that was just fuzzy in his ears, but the more he breathed and relaxed, the clearer the noise became, and soon he understood it was a voice.  
  
"Hey, hey. Mister." The blurry voice came into focus to form words. He recognised that voice. And only one person he knew called him 'Mister'. He turned his head to see the girl standing there at the entrance to the sidestreet staring at him with a remarkably worried expression. When he met her eyes, she began to steadily approach him like an animal who could lash out at any second. Bucky ruled it a fair comparison. She came to a stop three paces away. "You okay?" she asked gently, but loud enough to be heard over the beating rain.  
  
He couldn't grasp the words to answer her, tongue heavy as lead. His heartbeat was still in his ears, but now he felt underlying irritation at the circumstances. Couldn't the kid just leave him alone for five minutes? He could handle himself, damn it. He didn't need a young woman he barely knew trying to fix him. She was already needlessly putting herself in danger just by being around him. Could she not leave him alone? They were supposed to part ways. He shouldn't even be _here _to be having this conversation.  
  
The small voice broke his thoughts, "Do you, uh... do you want to borrow this?"  
  
His eyes glanced down to the object in her hands, outstretched in an offering to him. She'd apparently been digging around in her bag as he wallowed and insulted himself and was now holding something in her grasp.  
  
A stress ball.  
  
A small, blue, spherical, foam, _stress ball_. He almost scoffed at the triviality of such a simple object being offered to him. He'd need something significantly stronger than that piece of foam to try and do him any good. A ball of steel wouldn't be strong enough to take out his emotions on.  
  
His icy eyes flicked up to the doe ones looking back at him. She looked so hopeful. So innocent. But also like she was expecting him to start yelling at her for intervening. She had no idea the damage he could do to her. Yelling would be the last of her concerns.  
  
Gritting his teeth and shifting his focus, pushing away the unwanted thoughts of his strength and her lack thereof, Bucky stared at the ball offered to him. And then he reached out and he grasped it, hand sitting in her palms as the two locked eyes again. Both were stiff as the contact between hands were made, or, well, contact between hands and gloves. But with a considerable amount of self-control, years of training assisting him to push down all instinct of fight or flight, Bucky removed his hand from hers, the ball gripped tightly in his right hand, his _flesh _hand, fingers curling around it in tense little motions.  
  
The girl said nothing, just stood as the rain beat down on the two of them, watching Bucky with concerned eyes and chewing her lip as she thought hard on how she could help, if she could at all.  
  
Bucky hated to admit it but squeezing the stress ball and reminding himself there was someone beside him was actually slowing his pulse down further. His breathing had returned to a somewhat normal rhythm and his fist continued to squeeze the foam with calloused fingers beneath leather gloves.  
  
The thunder rumbled again above them, and both of the strangers jolted, shoulders hunching up and heads shifting away.  
  
"You don't like thunderstorms either, then?" The brunette still staring at him asked with a wobbly smile, blinking twitchingly every time the rain hit her eyes. He didn't answer her. She glanced behind herself, shoulders still tense, looking out of the side street and into the main street quickly being distorted by the rain. "Welp, I think we lost the tour. And I've also lost my sense of direction. Again." She muttered the last word to herself scoldingly before shaking her head with a sigh at the floor, water droplets shaking off her coat hood. "It's a long walk back in this to wherever I'm going."  
  
Bucky looked away from the brickwork of the wall to stare at her. She already looked put out enough even without the rain as a mocking background to the dismal atmosphere, and the thunder just taunting both of them at regular intervals. He could see the brunette getting sick from walking back to the hotel that was at least an hour's walk away now. That was better than seeing her on the ground due to his unreliable state of mind when it came to his memories and old HYDRA programming.  
  
Weighing his options, and giving a quick glance to the sky that told him it wasn't going to be finished crying for a long while, he made his mind up and nodded towards the further end of the alley. "Come on."  
  
The girl furrowed her brow, watching him walk away down the street. "Where are you going?"  
  
"Just come on before it gets any worse," he grumbled, pulling his hat brim lower to shield his eyes from the downpour.  
  
The girl looked between the figure disappearing around a corner, then back to the opening of the alley behind her. Another round of adventure with a stranger or soaked in a downpour where she could barely see three feet in front of her?  
  
She'd always liked adventures.


	7. Bookcase

It wasn't that long a jog together through the streets and off one particular back alley until they reached their destination. The wind picked up and the sky grew continually darker, regardless of how much rain showered down, bouncing loudly in a crescendo off the sidewalk. Bucky eventually turned down a street with houses laid out and down the drive of one in particular, listening to the footsteps of the girl behind him and glancing around through the rain before deciding they weren't being followed.  
  
He rummaged around in the plant pot by the front door and welcome mat, eventually retrieving the keys and stuffing the muddy things into the lock. It didn't work for a few tries, and Bucky could just see the hotel keycard situation happening again, and he grumbled under his breath. It never seemed to matter what house it was, the front door was always the problem. But eventually, the lock decided to give a little bit of mercy and opened, the two guests stumbling through the door and rushing to shut it before they let the flood at their backs inside. After getting it locked and flicking on the hallway lights, the two breathed a sigh of relief.  
  
"What is this place?" The girl was the first to speak.  
  
"A house," the supersoldier responded bluntly, pushing off the door.  
  
She followed him through to the living room, muscles reacting to the biting cold and starting to tense up. "Is it yours?"  
  
"Yes," Bucky confirmed, sliding out of his coat to hang it up by the fireplace. He rubbed his gloves together, though not because of the cold. He would spend days in freezing rain in mud in Siberia to get the perfect shot. The Winter Soldier didn't get cold.  
  
A sneeze behind him reminded him that he might not, but regular people did. He twisted around and held out one hand. "Throw me your coat."  
  
The girl's eyes widened ever so slightly and she shook her head. "I'm good, thanks." She rubbed her hands along her upper arms to warm herself. The house was not that much warmer than outside currently was, but the fire Bucky was going to light would soon heat things up.  
  
"You'll get sick like that. I just want to dry it against the fire."  
  
Her eyes flicked up and down his figure, squinting ever so slightly. Standing in a stranger's home was dangerous enough, handing over something she would desperately need should she be required to make a drastic exit even more so. But he'd proven to keep his boundaries so far, so perhaps this was alright to trust him with, and even if not she was still the closest person in the room to the door. "Be careful, please. I only have the one," she mumbled quietly as he took the only coat she owned and folded it over the fireguard to dry. He took care in laying it out carefully, letting the sleeves rest where they could dry quickly and being mindful of the torn side. The girl watched him, furrowing her brow at his meticulous movements, before shrugging it off and thinking back to outside and what had been on her mind their entire journey here. "In the alley earlier..."  
  
"No," he said simply. He didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to talk about it because if he talked about it, the memories would come back stronger. And he didn't need to have another episode in front of the girl. She didn't need to hear his problems. She didn't need to try to _help _his problems. He could handle it on his own.  
  
"Okay," the brunette replied quietly. Plain and simple. Again, she'd left it alone when he told her to. Bucky couldn't help but feel appreciative of her lack of prying. Or maybe it was because she just didn't care enough to ask for more.   
  
"So this is where you'll be staying," the girl said, turning around to view the living room in its entirety: a casual living room with a rustic style, two plush sofas, two windows -one facing the street and the other the backyard- both with the blackout blinds drawn, and a cosy wood-burning fireplace complete with a fireguard and a mirror hanging above it at eye level. The fireplace had nothing adorning the mantlepiece above it, no photos, no flowers, no material items of sentimental value, and no electricals aside from the lights.  
  
"For now," Bucky replied, opening a drawer in the desk and pulling out a set of matches, striking one and tossing it cautiously into the fireplace, quickly starting a flame.  
  
She hummed, hands rubbing her upper arms again as the cold really started to set in without her coat for an extra layer, "Are you a drifter?"  
  
Bucky decided that was a fair conclusion for the girl to come to considering her lack of information gathered from the limited time spent with him. "I guess." He didn't bother to remove his gloves or long sleeve shirt. He hoped he could hide that part of himself long enough she wouldn't see before she left. It may just have been a prosthetic at first glance, but he'd rather not get into the questions. It was just easier that way.  
  
Bucky cleared his throat, brushing away the thoughts. "You can have the blanket there until things warm up." he nodded to the arm of the sofa that held a plain red blanket.  
  
"Aren't you cold?" she asked, but was already reaching out and picking up the red blanket, shaking it out a few times before throwing it over herself and holding it closed at the front. It was a small, slightly damp smelling mercy from the cold of the house.  
  
He didn't answer her. "You hungry?" he asked, instead.  
  
"No." Her stomach verbally disagreed.  
  
And Bucky had gotten good at telling her lies apart anyway. Not that she tried all that hard not to look guilty. "Soup is most likely the safest option right now. So long as it isn't out of date." the soldier mumbled, progressing through to the kitchen.  
  
The girl followed behind him like a little puppy, the kitchen the same style to the living room with a window covered by a blind above the sink and a glass door leading outside covered by a thick sheet to block outdoor light. The layer of dust on the dining table indicated no one had been here for a while, and also that the brunette needed tissues after sneezing once again into the crook of her arm.  
  
Bucky opened a few of the cupboards, finding old packets of preservable food before finally finding the cupboard with cans, picking two of the tomato soup up and checking the dates. "Luck strikes," he said, waving a can in satirical victory.  
  
"As does the lightning outside." The girl said and jumped as the weather seemed to be taking an even worse turn, the light peeking in around the blinds lighting the room in a flash.  
  
Bucky nodded to the chairs surrounding the table and the brunette sat, dropping her bag and brushing at the layer of dust collected on the tabletop, first on her side and then the opposite where she assumed Bucky would seat himself. "There are two bedrooms upstairs. D'you want the one beside the toilet or stairs?" he asked, picking out a can opener and getting to work on the soup.  
  
"I don't need that much space. I could take one of the couches downstairs," she responded, picking up her backpack and settling it on her lap, hugging it slightly.  
  
"There are already two bedrooms. So, that's kinda pointless," he dismissed her objection in a second. He tried not to speculate as to why she wanted to stay downstairs rather than in an actual room meant for sleeping, and just chalked it up to not trusting being in closer proximity to him.  
  
"I don't mind," the girl decided and Bucky put in an honest effort not to roll his eyes.  
  
"I'll take the one by the stairs," he grunted back. He would feel better being nearer the quick access anyway.  
  
"Probably for the best. Knowing me, I'll get up to use the bathroom in the dark and end up falling down them," the girl chuckled awkwardly and Bucky raised an eyebrow over his shoulder, eyes questioning, as he could feel an inside story he wasn't party to. She bit her lip, watching him and hoping he wouldn't ask. He didn't verbally, but continued to stare that way that usually prompted more talk. "It happened before," she admitted quietly, and Bucky's mouth twitched up to a half-smile. He could see that happening.  
  
Bucky heated up the soup in two bowls in the microwave, setting them down on the table with two spoons and a plate of dry crackers to share. He'd stock up properly tomorrow. The soldier sat at the opposite end of the table, but his boots could easily reach over and brush hers if he stretched out. It was a reminder of how big he was compared to her and it didn't make him very comfortable to think about.  
  
"Do you ever take that off except to sleep?" she asked sometime after a few minutes.  
  
Bucky looked up from his soup and spoon with a hum.   
  
She gestured to his head, and his eyes flicked up to look at the brim of his cap. He hadn't realised he still had it on, but now he'd noticed, he also noticed his head was very cold where the snow had melted into the fabric. He should hang it up by the fire.  
  
Bucky reached up, taking it off by the front and dropping it down on the table beside him. "My hair's a mess." He shook it out, carding his fingers through it to push it away from his face.  
  
"It's not that bad," she stated casually.  
  
Bucky watched her for a second, studying her face with a careful eye. She wasn't lying to him, and she hadn't even noticed his staring this time, instead returning to sipping her soup. At least she was enjoying it. She even reached for a few of the crackers which made him feel a little more at ease. The girl didn't look much more than a stick figure without her coat to obscure her frame. He tried to shake his head free of the mildly growing concern for his guest and instead focused on his own food and setting a plan in his head for how to handle the night.

  
Clearing away the food once the two had finished, skipping over the moments when the two sat at the table in silence and stillness save for the girl's fingers tapping against the table, Bucky led her back into the living room where it was considerably warmer for the two and the rest of the house was starting to cooperate. "There's not much in the way of entertainment around here. Sorry," Bucky excused, starting to shift pillows on one of the sofas as the brunette watched him from the doorway.  
  
"Any books?" she asked quietly.  
  
_Of course she would ask that,_ Bucky mentally huffed and rolled his eyes. "Think there's some upstairs in one of the bedrooms. Haven't been here in a while."  
  
"I can tell," she mumbled, eyes glancing over the similar dust layer she could see on the fireplace compared to the kitchen.  
  
Bucky nearly smiled at the cheeky response and after doing a swift survey of upstairs declared she was safe to head up alone while he got the rest of the house sorted for guests. Letting her alone up there was a brave step, but one he believed he could afford. Or at least that's what he thought until he heard a muffled yell of surprise that instantly sent his nerves on high alert.  
  
Faster than he realised he could still move, he'd scaled the stairs and burst through the door to the bedroom he decided on, eyes scanning the room. "What's wrong?" he asked when he saw no human threats but the girl standing and staring at a particular spot on the bookcase.  
  
She looked sheepish when his eyes fell on her but she stayed firmly silent. And when those same eyes demanded a quick explanation by way of a glare, she caved. "I saw a spider." Her head inclined to the floor with the confession, scuffing a boot against the tired carpet.  
  
Bucky allowed the words to process, and his nerves paused in confusion first, and then fired again in exasperation. He sighed long through his nose, screwing his eyes shut then open again, spotting the little thing sitting there on the edge of the bookcase. It was no bigger than a cent, black, and happily sitting there not hurting nobody. "So you screamed?" he asked, the tone of pure disinterest.  
  
She whined at him, arms folded, "Hey, a lot of people are arachnophobic. Leave me alone." She looked close to stomping a foot along with the whining she was doing, and Bucky began rethinking his assumption of her age and it being too high a guess.  
  
"So you want me to smack it with a book or something?" he shrugged.  
  
"_No!_" She abruptly raised her voice for the first time he'd ever heard, and Bucky blinked at the outburst. The girl seemed just as surprised by herself, biting her lip and pulling fidgetingly on the blanket where she held it around her. "Don't _hurt _it. Just... put it outside please?" she requested instead.  
  
If at some point previous to this you'd told the Winter Soldier that in his future after running away from HYDRA he would find himself in a safe house in Germany taking a baby spider outside because a strange girl he didn't know the name of was scared of it, you'd be getting reconfiguration surgery for your face within days. But that's where he found himself moments later, down the stairs and edging the door open only the exact amount he needed to get one hand out into the pissing rain with the spider that instantly scrambled to get back inside again, and shut the door quickly, locking it again. The thunder had thankfully stopped, but the rain had not let up in the slightest.  
  
He breathed out a sigh and glanced towards the stairs, spotting the girl watching him halfway up and had even been maintaining a longer distance from him and the spider than she would regularly with just him.  
  
The idea was ridiculous. More afraid of a spider than the Winter Soldier? The only time that should be possible would be with the one and only Black Widow who had previously flashed up in his memories, but he hadn't managed to quite grasp their history just yet.  
  
"Thank you," she said, softly, taking two steps down the stairs.  
  
"You're welcome." he returned, and she smiled. It was a genuine smile, too, comfortable and soft. He shouldn't have liked how that made him want to smile back at the utter absurdity of the situation. Instead, he moved on. "Did you find any books?"  
  
She shook her head. "None that I liked the sound of. Looks like I'm sticking with my classics."  
  
Bucky chose not to mention the use of the plural word. He didn't know the complete contents of her backpack, but why wouldn't she have any more books in there along with clothes and whatever she had? She'd changed her shirt and jeans today, but there had to be a limit to the clothes she'd brought on her trip. He reminded himself to check if there were spare clothes anywhere in the house or if he'd have to go clothes hunting, even just for himself.  
  
"You should get settled in that room. Your clothes will be dry in a few hours," he instructed her, deciding not to dwell.  
  
She nodded, and he watched her disappear back upstairs and onto the landing, opening the door and moving into the room he'd assigned to her. He let himself breathe, fingers raking through his hair and grumbling to himself. This was dangerous. This was stupid. He'd already helped her. She shouldn't have been his responsibility anymore, and yet she was still here.  
  
Bucky spent the rest of the afternoon wondering if that was by choice or by circumstance. He didn't decide on an answer by the time it got to dinner.


	8. Notebook

Nightfall came quicker than expected. The rain had let up but had yet to stop completely, pattering on the window in polite commentary on the silence of dinner together. Bucky and the girl hadn't said much to each other since the Spider Incident since they'd mostly stayed out of each other's way until Bucky called her down for dinner of some pasta dish he'd managed to scrounge together in a pot. She hadn't heard him the first few times he'd yelled and didn't respond until he finally knocked on her door in mild concern for her safety. When it finally opened to the timid female, he spotted the book held open in one hand with her thumb and understood. He refused to say anything and just told her food was ready. She seemed surprised, but he refused to say anything on that also.  
  
"Rain doesn't seem to want to stop," the brunette mumbled absently at some point during the meal.  
  
Bucky hummed, shovelling another forkful into his mouth. "I'll have to check out the shed out back tomorrow, see if there's more wood to chop up or if I have to go to the market."  
  
She nodded softly, eyes drifting down to her plate where she twirled a fork around in her pasta. "I could help if you wanted."  
  
"I can handle it." _since you won't be staying tomorrow_ went unsaid but not unimplied. However, Bucky was silently appreciative that she'd offered. He had to give credit to her manners, especially when he thought of previous houseguests he'd entertained before. "Your coat should be dry by now," he told her, remembering the clothes hanging by the fire. The house was pleasantly warm now, but the girl had not dropped the red blanket wrapped around her shoulders, most likely forgetting she was even wrapped up in it as she read her stories.  
  
"Thank you." she smiled softly at her plate before taking another bite of her dinner.  
  
Bucky nodded, finishing the last of his own food and standing up to wash his dish. He'd just put it on the side when he turned around and the girl had somehow moved from the table without his notice, standing with her own finished plate and fork. He suppressed his surprise and moved a step to the side where she proceeded to wash her own plate and utensil under the tap and leave them to dry by the side. As she cleaned, he spied the yellowing bruises around her wrists, a sharp reminder of her rescue, and couldn't help but feel responsible. They looked like they hurt. But he counted himself fortunate that for once he hadn't been the one to cause the damage.  
  
After dinner, the soldier busied himself with setting up the house for proper living, checking all rooms including the basement with the lockable door. There had been weapons and cash money stored in miscellaneous boxes down there, along with a few communication devices all old as hell but he still took the trackers out of. No point in the risk. And there were a few boxes with clothes of varying sizes he brought up and threw in the washing machine in the store cupboard, sparing a glance up the stairs before returning to the living room to pick up his coat and hang it up properly on a hanger. He looked at her coat, navy blue with black sewn buttons and a hood, and shook his head. He picked it up, folding it over and putting it on the table ready for tomorrow morning before deciding to call it a night.  
  
Heading upstairs and to his room, not missing the soft glowing light peeking out underneath the door of the guest room as he passed, Bucky stripped to his boxers (and vest just in case something were to happen), laying his gloves on the bedside table carefully and running his flesh hand along the ridges of his metal arm. He really needed to figure his head out before it pushed back and figured him out first. Each time he slept he was fighting to wake up as Bucky, not as Him. And he _had _to wake up as Bucky tomorrow, or risk hurting her.  
  
Bucky tossed the covers over himself, squirming around in an attempt to get comfortable on the lumpy bed. It took ten minutes to decide it wasn't happening and shuffling to the floor instead, blanket and pillows set out with him before he could manage to finally settle himself down to sleep.  
  
  
The brunette hadn't been able to relax enough to sleep. She'd read for as long as she could and then settled down to sleep, but no amount of tossing or turning had let her fall into an unconscious embrace. Therefore, deciding to get a glass of water in hopes of it helping, she quietly crept out of her room, keeping her red blanket wrapped around herself and to the kitchen, soon realising she had no idea where anything was. And so began the impromptu search through the cupboards for cups, grabbing a plain mug and filling it with water, taking a few sips and sighing. Then she started exploring again, curiosity getting the better of her little mind, and she searched around the seemingly boring room until she came across a particular drawer with a plain leatherbound notebook sitting inside. She furrowed her brow, pulling it out and flicking it open. It had no inscription or name in the front, and so she began flicking through it.  
  
There were pages with what seemed to be random notes, little scraps of thoughts written down in haste before they were carried off elsewhere. She would need much longer than she had now to decipher them properly, so she continued to flip through the pages that resembled the small notes she used to scribble in her margins when reading a new book.  
  
One page, in particular, caught her eye and made her pause. The one scrawled from top to bottom in shaky writing and covering the entirety of the page in a repeating pattern of words. But it was the inclusion of numbers that caught her attention.  
  
_Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038._  
  
"_Drop it_." Bucky's growling command was nothing short of animalistic, and the girl practically recoiled at the sudden interruption, the book hitting the counter with a dull thud and her hands pulling back to clutch her chest over the blanket. She hadn't heard him come down the stairs or seen him enter the kitchen, coming close to shitting herself at his abrupt appearance.  
  
Bucky's eyes softened as hers stared at him as if he'd struck her physically, swallowing and studying him up and down looking completely ready to run off out the door. Even if he'd put on a jacket and one glove, he felt like she could see what he was trying to hide, and the alarm in her expression became much harder to ignore. "Sorry. I didn't mean to..." He curbed his harsh tone for a kinder one, the fear in her eyes jolting him awkwardly.  
  
It took a few moments for her to stutter out a reply. "It's fine. I shouldn't have been snooping around. I just... couldn't sleep and got curious." Her eyes darted away from him, running over the walls and floor and anywhere that wasn't him. He didn't quite understand why that made him feel somewhat dirty inside, and shoved the thought down along with the instinct of an intruder in the house.  
  
Neither person said anything for a long time, silence thick as fog and only heartbeats the remaining sound in the room. Even the atmosphere seemed to be holding its breath at the situation.  
  
But, as always, the girl was the first to break the silence. "So... James, huh?" she asked softly, swallowing lightly but the sound amplified in the cut-glass silence of the room.  
  
"Used to be," Bucky said, the knife clutched in his left hand held out of her line of sight behind him.  
  
She nodded, starting to awkwardly rock on her feet. "And a Sergeant?"  
  
"Used to be," Bucky said, again.  
  
She nodded once more, her doe eyes finally lifting to meet his. "I was betting for "Sebastian". You look like a Sebastian, honestly." She slowly relaxed herself, arms falling softly to her sides instead of clutching her chest. Bucky remained quiet, and the two stayed locked in a staring contest for a long pause. "So... what are you now?"  
  
Bucky slid the knife into the back waistband of his boxers, slackening his arm to his side. "Retired."  
  
"You don't look the age to retire. What division did you serve?" She asked, head tilted and gaze curious. He didn't answer her. She hadn't expected him to. Though she couldn't help but be a little disappointed. The girl looked back at the book on the counter, flicking at the leather cover before her eyes trailed back to him. "Would you mind if _I _called you James, then?"  
  
Something itched in the back of his head at the name. He knew he should have identified with it, but now it felt disconnected from him. As did so many things nowadays, it appeared. Yet, he realised, it didn't sound so bad when she said it. "You can," he agreed and tried not to feel regret at the decision. It had sounded different coming from her, so perhaps it could mean something different when she said it.  
  
The girl gave a small, warm smile, eyes lighting up with something he couldn't distinguish. "Thank you." It struck Bucky as odd that she looked genuinely happy at something so small. He brushed it off as not being used to her emotional profile. "It has to be better than Mister Don't right? _Mister James Don't_. Sounds like a British name," she began to babble to herself, the smile growing steadily as she talked. If he didn't nip this one right now, she'd be too excited to go back to bed.  
  
"Try and go back to sleep, Red." He nodded at her before turning around and moving towards the door.  
  
"Red?" She called after him confused, and he paused to glance over his shoulder at her. Her furrowed brow lasted a few moments and then relaxed before she was smiling again in an understanding of his reference. "Is this you giving me a new name?" He regretted mentioning the idea now, the notion seeming to make her grow even more excited. "Red. Reeeeed," she tried the name out on her tongue a few times, tasting the name, before nodding, satisfied. "I like it. Thanks, James."  
  
There was his name again. It still sounded odd and foreign to him, but he supposed he would get used to it in the future. Or not considering she would be leaving in the morning. He gave her a short nod, grabbing the notebook off the counter with a look to Red and turned around once more, heading to the stairs.  
  
The girl followed him with quick footsteps and stood at the bottom step as he'd managed to get far enough ahead he'd reached the middle steps when she asked him, "Hey if I'm Red, does that make you the Wolf or the Woodsman of the story?"  
  
His chest clenched. It was a childish question and he should have just brushed it off with a shake of his head, but it lingered in his mind longer than it should have. Wolf or Woodsman? Villain or hero? Why was that even a question? He knew which one he was, even if the little girl in the story didn't. "Sleep," he commanded, shaking it off and starting walking again.  
  
"Yes, Sargeant." She gave a two-fingered salute to his back.  
  
"Don't call me that. Ever." His tone was as cold as the ice he was once frozen in, eyes piercing similarly icy daggers into her chest, and the girl swallowed quietly under the dangerous glare.  
  
"Okay." she dropped her eyes to the floor, hands fidgeting with her blanket, and Bucky decided he was satisfied enough with that answer, closing the door to his room none too softly behind him.


	9. Bowl

By morning, the rain had stopped but had a little less than drowned the street. Puddles were unavoidable for the cars racing up and down and anyone who stepped outside in anything less protective than boots was not going to have a good day. The sky was equally miserable however had decided to give Germany a break for now, not that it helped that particular morning when the damage had already been done.  
  
Red, as she had been newly dubbed, began the morning slowly. Waking up in an unfamiliar bed and having a split-second panic before remembering how she'd gotten there wasn't the best start. Then swallowing dryly, she realised her throat was sore, and would probably remain like that for the rest of the day. So, getting up and groggily dressing in jeans and a shirt leftover in her backpack, she brushed through her hair and wiped the sleep from her eyes with her normal routine before packing up her bag ready to leave.  
  
She left the room after a double check she had everything and made her way to the stairs ready to collect her coat, but her body involuntarily halted halfway down the steps. There was a moment where everything in the house seemed to stand still, and then she was suddenly rushing the rest of the stairs and nearly banging her head on the restroom door before she sunk to her knees and threw up her dinner into the toilet.  
  
Well, that was an unexpected complication.  
  
Red lifted her head, breathing in and trying to get oxygen back into her body, and her body responded with a coughing gag and a spinning head. She winced at the echo of the bathroom. She was making too much noise. And she was vomiting in a stranger's toilet- no. James's toilet. How great a houseguest was she? This looked really bad. She just hoped James wasn't awake yet.  
  
"Red?"  
  
And the hope was instantly crushed at the voice floating in from the restroom doorway.  
  
"I'm fine. I'm fine." She waved a dismissive arm in his general dizzy direction, unable to raise her head more than a few inches away from the toilet bowl. "Just give me- just give me t-ten minutes, I'll be oka--"  
  
Projectile vomit.  
  
Bucky cringed and Red whined pitifully, head thumping against the seat as her body shuddered.  
  
"Sorry," she groaned, panting slightly, her skin suddenly chilling in a cold sweat.  
  
"Stop apologising," Bucky responded, scanning her face to see how pale it had drained compared to her usual peachy tone. It hadn't been what he expected when standing in the kitchen that morning, handling freshly bought groceries and making a final meal for the two. He'd heard the door upstairs open and close halfway through cracking an egg, creaking footsteps on the stairs, a pause, and then a rush and a throw-up sound effect into the downstairs bathroom. He should have known she'd get sick after yesterday's fiasco between the rain and freezing house. "I might have something-" Bucky paused as she chucked up again. "-around that might help. Stay there."  
  
"Not much choice," she muttered softly as Bucky turned around and began searching through the kitchen drawers for any type of medication. He didn't carry much himself. There was no reason to. He didn't get sick, as far as he knew, and the most he had was a few powerful painkillers that would no doubt knock the kid's sanity out of her head for a few hours. The serum made him resistant to most things, so he needed the strength when he was broken or banged up, and for a normal person it would make them a temporary fruit loop.  
  
This was not what he'd wanted this morning, and he doubted it was what Red wanted either. Why did the universe hate him?  
  
The muffled echoing coughs set his mind back on his task, rummaging through his backpack sat on a chair this time instead.  
  
And why did it apparently hate this kid? They were supposed to have parted ways officially days ago, and still now they were stuck together. He knew this wouldn't be just a ten-hour bug, maybe if he was really lucky it would be, but considering his recent chain of luck with this girl he didn't hold out too much hope for that chance, staying resolutely realistic.  
  
There were painkillers in his bag, strong ones, but nothing else. He'd have to go to the store, but that meant leaving her alone. And he wasn't sure whether she could handle being left on her own like this. Bucky nodded to himself, got up from the table and rounded the corner to see Red pushing her hair back from her face and wiping her face with toilet tissue, tossing it in and flushing the bowl but appearing without the energy to move any further than to her knees.  
  
"Ten minutes. I'll get out." She nodded, then stilled as she realised that was a very very bad idea right now.  
  
Bucky held back an eye roll and gritty sigh. "Don't be stupid. You can't go anywhere like that. You won't last five minutes outside." He leaned on the doorway beside him, arms folded, unsure what else he could do other than watch to make sure she didn't pass out and choke. This wasn't exactly his area of expertise, especially with someone he barely knew, but what he did know was that if he let her stumble out his front door like this he may as well have left her in the hands of those stall owners that day. It would end up the same way either way.  
  
Red hated to admit it but he was right. She wasn't going anywhere. Her vision wasn't stable and all she could taste was the tang of stomach acid and regurgitated pasta in her mouth. The idea of her food being drugged briefly flashed through her mind, but after her late-night discovery in the kitchen, she decided that wasn't likely. There was no reason for her to be gotten rid of in that way, the worst James would do to her would be throwing her out, which right now he didn't seem prepared to do. She was planning to be gone before he reached that point regardless of illness anyway. No need to take up space.  
  
She flinched back, too lost in thought to notice the supersoldier's brief disappearance and reappearance with a glass of water in hand, held in front of her face with a patient hand. "Drink," he instructed. Her eyes flicked up to him with the fleeting thought that maybe there _was _something wrong with her food, but she shook it off and held the glass with a half-hearted grip, taking a short gulp before hanging her head and breathing through the nauseous passes.  
  
It took maybe ten minutes for Red to stop emptying her stomach into the toilet bowl. Then she just slumped tiredly over the porcelain and looking more than worse for wear, forehead damp and skin pale. Bucky reminded her to drink and she did, gentle little sips that cooled her burning throat until the glass was emptied. Then Bucky just took it back and refilled it, allowing her to try and get the fluids back in her body. Giving her any type of medication now would be pointless if she was just going to sick it back up again, but that just meant this was going to be long and drawn out, and Bucky had to resign himself to the fate the world had put upon him and Red.  
  
At least he had an answer to his question if her being here was by choice or by circumstance. And the answer was that circumstance hated him.  
  
  
An hour later, Red had been stable enough to stumble the few steps there were to the living room and lie down on one of the couches. They'd aimed for upstairs, but the swaying she went through as they reached the bottom step told Bucky that that definitely wasn't happening without serious injury to at least one of them, so the sofa it was. He stuck a broken log he'd found by the backdoor on the fire and helped settle her in front of it for the morning with a sick bowl beside her. He'd also whipped upstairs and snagged the blanket left neatly folded on the edge of the guest room bed, telling her to wrap it around her regardless of how much she squirmed, insisting she was warm enough with the fire and she was okay. It was less convincing than she hoped when she was interrupted by a coughing fit midway. Bucky didn't bother suppressing the eye roll that time, a sudden memory springing to mind of a short spindly blond constantly exhausting himself to sickness regardless of how many times Bucky had warned him. But the boy kept insisting he was okay and that he could handle things, and more often than not he ended up on a couch with a wet towel on his head and a blanket engulfing his little frame.  
  
Bucky struggled to remember who's couch it was. But that blanket was knitted and homemade. Whose home? Who knew? Not him. Not yet.  
  
The fire would soon burn out without more fuel. He could manage that, having found an axe kept safe under the stairs and the shed outside piled with uncut logs. The logs were shoved to one side, and the other side held a large cupboard locked with a padlock and cable which he assumed was filled with gardening tools or something to that effect and so left it alone. There were a few ropes lying around, most were tangled in knots, and a broken chair that someone had attempted to DIY fix but given up partway through. But there was a stump in the garden and Bucky determined that's where he would head as soon as he thought he could leave Red alone without the risk of her puking up her guts.  
  
By the time it had reached lunch Bucky was making soup again and Red had fallen asleep. He hesitated before waking her since she'd only just stopped squirming but he hoped she might be able to stomach something. So, he called her name a few times, getting her to stir as he set down a bowl on the side table. It had taken a bit of murmured arguing before Red clumsily reached for the spoon and forced a good half bowl down herself which made Bucky feel a little better.  
  
Then she was turning over to the sick bowl and hacking, which made Bucky feel a little worse. It stayed inside her, thankfully, but it was also close to coming up and saying hello again. And Bucky was quickly put off his own food, cursing whichever Gods still cared about him with every army-learned curse he could think of.  
  
He was actually really impressed by how many he could remember.


	10. Axe

Bucky spent a while outside once Red had fallen asleep again. The axe in his hands swung heavily down on the chopping block, splitting the offending log open to be tossed into the steadily growing pile. He stretched out his arms before picking up another log and settling it on the block, ready to swing again.  
  
The weather had remained thankfully mild, though the grey sky above wasn't promising. If it started raining heavily again, Bucky knew the unaffected and almost foreign part of his mind would offer the girl to stay longer, even if she wasn't sick anymore. The longer she stayed, the more the danger increased. He needed her to get better and then get out before something happened. He didn't know what would happen, but it would. It always did.  
  
His grip on the axe wavered and he turned the weapon over in his hands. _"Hey if I'm Red, does that make you the Wolf or the Woodsman of the story?"_ She had no idea what she was asking. He knew. It was obvious. But the fact she'd asked, and as a joke no less, only proved how naive she was to him. And he tried not to think about it, instead filling his head with the thoughts of bringing the wood inside before it started raining and what the girl might be able to stomach for dinner.  
  
Packing up, Bucky stomped his boots on the mat by the door, mud shirking off the thick rubber soles, before locking the door and rolling the blackout blind over it, heading through to the living room. "Red, I wondered if..."  
  
Bucky paused.  
  
Red wasn't where he'd left her on the sofa. In fact, she wasn't in the room at all. And for the umpteenth time in days, his temper spiked in alarm. A quick glance behind him to the open toilet door told him she wasn't there. And she'd not been in the kitchen, or in a position to climb the stairs when he'd left her. Hell, she hadn't even been awake when he'd left her. Bucky did a 180, spinning to the stairs and taking them two by two until he reached the landing which was significantly colder than downstairs but still a bearable temperature. Her room was open, but no one inside and the window was closed. The bathroom was closed too. So, the last option was his room. He approached the door and carefully opened it, the wood creaking in response to reveal the scene before him.  
  
On the floor, bundled up in the cosy red blanket and slouched against the bookcase casual as could be was the girl who'd given him a dozen heart attacks in the last few hours alone. Red's eyes were half-lidded, her head dipped to the side, and her legs curled up towards her with socked feet poking out the blanket edge. Her face was pale but not as bad as when she'd emptied her dinner into the toilet, one hand holding a book open and the other clutching a crumpled excuse for a tissue made of toilet paper in the other. She hadn't even noticed him entering, too entranced in her book.  
  
And the only thing that could manage to make its way out of his mouth was the demand of "what the hell?" sharp and brash to the girl who just looked up from her book with a distracted hum.  
  
"Pardon?" Her eyes blinked softly at him, undisturbed by his presence.  
  
Bucky shoved his panic down to the far reaches of his mind again to be forgotten with a bitter sigh. "Why are you up here? It's freezing. How did you even get up here?" He took a quick glance back to the stairs they had failed to make it up less than a few hours before.  
  
"Uh, walked? Well, more like stumbled clumsily and nearly fell all the way back down again more than a few times." She chuckled in spite of herself and then started coughing.  
  
Bucky's eyes were back on her in an instant, the tissue clutched gently in one hand being hacked into with vigour, the book held open by her other page-marked by her thumb. He could barely believe what he was seeing. She'd come upstairs from her place in the warm living room to the freezing cold upstairs? How did anyone ever let this kid out of their sight? "Why are you up here?" he asked again, eyes narrowing ever so slightly.  
  
"I wanted to read," she offered weakly, clearing her throat and wincing as it burned. Bucky remained silent, just staring at her and trying his best not to say something that would quantify as an overreaction to the safety of a stranger in the house. She came all the way up here just to read something from the bookshelf? Not even one of her own books? Was the girl's fever making her delirious? She seemed to sense his thoughts, pushing herself up with sore muscles to sit straight against the bookcase and look at him from under her lashes. "Are you angry?" She had the decency to at least appear contrite, and seemed to be almost fearful of his response to the question, worrying her bottom lip and waiting.  
  
Bucky took a few breaths putting his hands on his hips, not unlike a classic motherly figure and scowling a little. "Don't do that again."  
  
She swallowed, eyes flicking to the carpet in front of her. "Sorry. I didn't realise you'd be worried," she admitted quietly.  
  
"Didn't realise I'd be..." he trailed off and didn't finish, a new train of thought emerging from the back of his mind. He kept silent, staring at her as his mind tried its best to pull pieces of ideas together. Fragments that added up to... something. Was he overthinking it? All could be justifiable as a wary person's reactions. Her guilty mind, her hesitation to accept help, the obsession of doing things herself, her similar reluctance to sit close to him, her shirking attitude whenever he tried to offer her something.  
  
"James?" Red asked when he'd been silent for too long, yanking Bucky from his thoughts.  
  
The supersoldier blinked at himself, regretting the interruption as his mind lost what he'd been thinking, and he shook his head. "Nothing." He took a deep breath in before stepping a pace closer. "Can you just... downstairs? Please." He gestured to the stairs behind him in indication.  
  
Red nodded gently, grabbing the blanket with her tissue hand and moving to stand, her face starting to scrunch up in pain. Her muscles were growing sore. She eased up to a shaky stance, and when he approached to try and lend an assist, she waved her arm at him the same as she'd tried in the restroom earlier that day. "I can do it. I can do it." She shook her head at his silent offer and just took it slow when walking towards the door.  
  
Bucky's eyes flicked between the girl and stairs, staying a few steps ahead in case she slipped, but they however slowly it was managed to get to the living room once again. He helped her lie back down on the sofa, still wrapped up in her blanket. "Right. Stay," he told her with a wagging finger, then paused as he realised how much that sounded like he was treating her the same way he would treat a dog, and added a gentle "please" to his sentence. Then he retreated into the kitchen to pour her another glass of water and grab his bag from the chair it sat on. It took no longer than a few moments, but when he returned, she'd disappeared again from her spot on the sofa. He nearly broke the water glass in his left hand, but a sneeze drew his attention to the spot in front of the fire where a bundle of trouble was laying her head on a pillow and curling close to the warmth than she should have been, even with the fireguard.  
  
When she rubbed her nose and did a double-take up at Bucky staring down at her with half-frustrated eyes, she snuggled back into her blanket with a shy voice, "I'm cold."  
  
"Yeah. And you'll be warm for life if you get much closer to that fire. Move back, Steve." Bucky put the glass on the coffee table and his bag on the second sofa of the room.  
  
"Steve?" Red repeated, confused.  
  
Bucky blinked. He hadn't realised that he'd let the name slip out. "Nothing," he told her, bringing the glass over and settling it down in front of her. She smiled softly, taking a sip with a small thank you before producing the book she'd snagged from the shelves upstairs out of her blanket and continuing to read where she left off.  
  
Bucky settled on the sofa under the window overlooking the back yard, Red on the floor in front of him, lying in front of the fire on the wall to his left. He picked up his backpack, sliding out the notebook inside and opening it up to a fresh page. He picked up a pencil, the end tapping gently against the page as he tried to identify the name 'Steve' and why he'd said it in the reminder of Red's lying by the fire. "Red?" She perked her head up with a hum. "How old are you?"  
  
"Twenty," she said without a pause, dropping her head back on the pillow. "Twenty-one in October," she added softly before falling victim to a small coughing fit. She sat up, bowed over and hands cupped over her mouth, muffling the noises until she stopped, breathing in a few times and lying back down again, picking up her book and continuing where she'd left off as if nothing had happened.   
  
The image of the small woman cuddled up by the fire with a running nose and puffy cheeks reminded him of a childhood incident...or multiple. There were blurry words, but nothing specific he could hold onto. Until like a dam, a crack appeared in the blocks and a once held back image flooded his memory.  
  
_"I'm fine Buck. Honest." A weasley voice insisted, throat scratchy and nose blocked._  
  
It was distant and fuzzy, but the words were clear. Bucky furrowed his brow, grip on the pencil tensing.  
  
_A scoff. "You're about as honest as my ma when she talks about her apple pie recipe being hers."  
  
"Bucky..."  
  
"No, Steve. Stay inside today. Just... please? For me? I don't wanna be cartin' you to the hospital cause you wanted to go check the birdhouse in the rain. You're already in bad enough shape after yesterday."_  
  
The second person sounded kind of like him. But it didn't _feel _like him. And he couldn't replicate the feeling as he wrote down the lines in his book, grabbing the memory before it could scamper away. It was that Steve guy again from his past. The one that people of today called Captain America. HYDRA's enemy. His enemy. Or at least he used to be.  
  
What happened to split them apart? His body longed with the feeling of past camaraderie, but wouldn't bother filling his mind with the details. He'd seen the Smithsonian memorial. He knew who he used to be. Or should have been. But it felt a far stretch from what he was with HYDRA and what he was now. _"Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield. Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country." _That's what the narrator had said. But his head was blurry after the train. Zola. The snow. His arm missing, and then replaced. Being locked and frozen over and over.  
  
His left hand balled into a fist. He couldn't feel as much with it as his flesh hand, but he could still feel the metal joints scraping against one another, the alloy shifting to accommodate his wanted actions. He hadn't wanted it. He hadn't wanted any of it. He wasn't in control of his own mind.  
  
But he did it. He hurt people. _Killed _people. He was a monster, a murderer, with a head as messy as a cats cradle with no way out once tangled.  
  
But the girl on the floor didn't know that. She didn't see that. And with the hope that filled the green of her eyes, he prayed he could rely on that hope to help him keep away and restrain any part of the animalistic monster HYDRA created in his mind from coming out to bite her.


	11. Fever dream

**The next day**  
Red woke up that morning and immediately wanted to sink into a dark void. Her eyes were sore, her throat was scratchy, and the blind to the window wasn't closed so the daylight was shining directly in her face. She rolled over to face the wall and instantly regretted it, her muscles screaming at her like she'd run a marathon without training beforehand, and her head pounded as if a bookshelf had toppled over onto her and it was weighting her to the bed.  
  
The girl felt a wave of guilt mix in with her sickness. She was in a strangers house coughing and hacking and pretty much messing with his plans as she had been for the past few days, and now she was taking over one of his rooms and spreading germs. She was just taking up space. She needed to go. But her body wouldn't let her. She felt hot but a cold sweat had dried across her skin, and what felt like a scouring pad settled in her throat.  
  
And she could smell eggs. And some type of meat. And it wasn't helpful. She was either dizzy, or hot, or cold, or all three and it wasn't fair. And was also pretty certain if she stepped out the front door in this condition she'd immediately fall over into a bush and die.  
  
After a while of wallowing in self-pity, not much else she could do in her predicament and also having no sense of time whatsoever, she heard footsteps climbing the stairs. For a moment it crossed her mind to be wary of who it was, but the eggs and whatever that weird-smelling thing was had her brushing it off just as quickly.  
  
She didn't open her eyes as the door was knocked on, then opened after a moment of silence. Bucky was poking his head in before spotting her on the bed, facing the door. Red felt awkward as he seemed to just stand there silently watching her with her eyes closed long enough she began to wonder if he was even still there before loudly announcing "you have a fever" and sounding a little put-out by the idea.  
  
Red didn't have the energy to deny it, instead whining out a small noise that sounded much too like a whimper than she was comfortable with. She heard the shuffling of movement as Bucky left the room, and then reappeared a few moments later setting something down on the counter beside her. She pried her eyes open long enough to see a tall glass of water with a single ice cube sat floating in it. She would have smiled if it didn't hurt, reaching out and taking a sip, the ice cube tickling her upper lip.  
  
The drink made her feel instantly better, not completely, but a little to take the edge off.  
  
"Are you hungry?" A definite shale of the head on that one. The soldier glanced over her, noticing the way her covers were clutched close to her body. "Do you feel cold?"  
  
Oddly enough, she did. He said she had a fever, but she felt cold. Freezing, in fact, and getting colder by the second. She pulled the covers around her tighter.  
  
"Think you can you make it downstairs by the fire?" he asked with not very much hope in his voice.  
  
It took time and effort to get Red out of the bed. Bucky didn't offer physical assistance but reminded her to take it easy as she sat up and nearly started vomiting again. She stumbled her way through the door and down the stairs before they were on steady ground in the living room, Bucky letting her drop to the floor in front of the newly lit fire and propping her head up with the pillow he hadn't moved from the night before. He knew he had to get actual medication for her now. No point in her suffering longer when he could be doing something about it. He debated whether it was a good idea to leave her alone and in the house on her own where it was very possible to choke on her own vomit, regardless of the empty stomach she had compared to his full one.  
  
"Don't do anything stupid until I get back," he said with a raised eyebrow, reaching a decision. Then he found himself tugging on the back of her blanket and sliding her across the floor a little away from the fireplace. "Such as setting yourself on fire. What did I say about being so close?" She didn't say anything and just stared up at him with her green eyes filled with a placating innocence, her cold-sweating face glinting lightly in the light of the fire. It didn't look like she posed a challenge just yet, but he didn't want her hurting herself while he was out just to spite him. So, giving her a "one moment" gesture, he rummaged around in the kitchen drawers before returning to the living room and winding out a line of duct tape across the floor in front of her and a few steps from the fireguard.  
  
After he was done, he put his hands on his hips, an action that was becoming more and more common when talking to the twenty-year-old. "Right. If you cross that line... uh..." Bucky realised he didn't really have any grounds to hand out a consequence. Or at least, not a consequence he could give without getting an illness-weakened punch in the face. "You'll be in big trouble," he eventually threatened, leaving the thought ambiguous in hopes she wouldn't question it.  
  
But, of course, the girl had to shakily prop herself up on an elbow and ask, "What kind of trouble?"  
  
"Big," he reiterated.  
  
"But... what specifically?" Her speech was cracking, throat scratchy and her voice clearly would not hold out for long.  
  
"Uh..." Bucky looked around the room for something to hopefully inspire him before thinking of something. "I'll take away your pillow privileges." Well, that was the most pathetic threat he'd ever heard. Had he really just said that? Him? Bucky Barnes? The Winter Soldier?  
  
Either way, it appeared to work as the girl dropped herself back down to a lying position with only the slightest whimper and cuddle as close to the fire as the duct tape line allowed her.  
  
Deciding that was good enough, Bucky put the duct tape away and grabbed his bag, jacket, and keys, heading out to the nearest pharmacy and picking up supplies.  
  
The trip took no longer than an hour and a half, and when he returned Red had fallen into an uneasy sleep. There was a single solitary knee crossing over the tape line on the floor but he dismissed it as being a byproduct of the sleeping position she'd taken up. He unpacked his bag on top of the table, making a note to give her the medication with lunch since she missed breakfast. At least she looked a little warmer now but was curled up like a foetus in front of the fire. Bucky took out the thicker set of blankets from his bedroom cupboard to lay one over her, attempting to gauge what would be helping her illness and what would be accidentally killing her from dehydration and heat exhaustion, so he made sure to put a glass of water down too as he busied himself in other parts of the house to stop himself fussing further.  
  
  
The next morning Bucky was back outside with the axe again, chopping more fuel for the fire on the stump. It's not like they were burning through the logs that quickly or anything, the motion and the quiet just helped him think. The weather was calm that day, a little nippy but not enough for more than a thick jacket and his gloves again. And the stomach full of eggs and bacon was filling and warm, too.  
  
"Need any help?"  
  
Bucky did not start when he heard Red's voice from the doorway to the house. He absolutely did notice her arrival, the moving of the blind and the door opening. He just pretended not to acknowledge her in hopes she would go back inside.  
  
...okay, honestly, with the number of times she'd popped up like that now Bucky could have sworn she'd had stealth training.  
  
"What are you doing? Back inside." He dissuaded her with a motion of his hand, shooing her back into the house.  
  
"I'm feeling better though. And I want to help with something..." she mumbled the end, looking down at her socked feet and at the line that separated the house and the garden patio. It had been easier to get out of bed that morning and she hadn't wanted to be swallowed up by the floor when she woke.  
  
"Getting back inside would be helpful," he told her, dropping the wood block to the floor by his foot. She did look a little less pale than before, but that didn't mean she was any better internally.  
  
"James." There it was again. His name. His birth name. It sounded good when she said it, even in the soft and tired voice she could only just afford. Bucky sighed, glancing down at the floor then back up at Red. "Please?" she asked and lips drawing into what Bucky would describe as a definite pout.  
  
He decided rather than telling her no when she appeared to already feel pretty lousy, to compromise. "Alright. Can you pull out a large pot from under the stove and fill it with water before putting it on the stove to boil?" He'd planned on making noodles tonight anyway, hoping she'd be able to stomach something more solid today. Breakfast hadn't gone down too well, but lunch the day before along with her meds had been okay, and then dinner was slept through, so she really should eat today. And if she was feeling as better as she claimed she might just be able to. The girl in question nodded softly in agreement. "Great. And then can you please go lie back down?"  
  
Red sniffed in a breath and itched her nose with the corner of the blanket. "I don't want to be useless."  
  
Bucky made a mental note to wash that blanket soon. It probably wasn't helping her. "You're not useless. You're gonna put the pot on, and then go make sure you get better. Right?" He felt like he was talking to a child, but so long as he got the message across that she needed to actually stay where he put her he didn't care how he had to express it.  
  
Red nodded minutely and slowly turned around to disappear back through the glass door and roll the blind back down.   
  
Bucky sighed out as the blind separated them again. The tension melted from his shoulders and he stared back down at the stump in front of him and hoped this would soon be over and as far out of his mind as he could possibly push it.


	12. Pocket

The ex-assassin was awoken early that morning, somewhere around when the sunlight had just begun peeking in behind the blinds to the window, to the sound of distant shuffling. Tampering down his natural reaction to tense and reach for the nearby light or weapon, he stayed still with his eyes closed and listened to the noises. It wasn't coming from his room, but instead next door. Red's room.  
  
A fleeting sensation of cold passed through his mind and crawled down his spine at those two words together, though it departed as soon as it arrived and he didn't have enough time to grab onto and analyse it for what it was. But something apparently hadn't sat well with one of his thoughts.  
  
Listening carefully to the sounds, it seemed like she was deliberately being sneaky about moving around and shuffling things, trying to be as quiet as possible if the gaps of stillness were anything to go by, as well as the occasional louder thump and quietly hissed words (most likely curses) under her breath.  
  
"Red?" he called out once, not too loudly, just to see if she would respond.  
  
The movements stopped altogether. It was silent for a long while as the supersoldier laid in his bed and strained his hearing for any noise other than the house. Bucky counted the seconds, and it took thirty-seven before he heard a final slump of something against the floor, and then the squeaking of bedsprings as she crawled back into her bed.   
  
Perhaps he should have been more concerned by the noises at whatever-time in the morning she was awake, but he didn't hear any muffled response or attempt at an answer so he ruled out strangers, and the bedsprings suggested she gave up on whatever she'd been trying to accomplish. She didn't seem to be coughing or vomiting, which was also a good sign. Maybe he would ask about it in the morning. Maybe he wouldn't.  
  
  
Come morning, Bucky didn't have to wander upstairs to collect the girl from her bundle of blankets, and she instead surprised him by walking through the kitchen door in the middle of cooking breakfast. Her skin wasn't as pale as a fish anymore and she no longer looked like she would immediately rush to the toilet the moment her tongue touched food, but Bucky still stayed a little cautious as he settled down a plate of sausage and eggs in front of the girl. She managed it fine, but after a gentle insistence from Bucky that she stay on the couch, she agreed and curled up in front of the fresh fire as Bucky went at his normal practice outside with the tree stump and axe, which is how he found himself eying up the woodshed and wandering inside to inspect the stock cupboard.  
  
It was an average looking thing, old and rusting with chipping grass green paint. Although the padlock and cable looked oddly out of place for such an old thing, the only part of it that looked part of this century. And the handles were in pretty good condition too considering how they didn't fall off at his first touch, and didn't squeak or creak when he tugged on them more firmly. He could just yank the handles off if he really wanted to, it wasn't much effort with his arm. Or maybe the axe could break through it less messily, although that risked putting the axe out of commission and getting another one around here without proper reason--  
  
"Hey, James."  
  
Bucky's head snapped to the doorway where the elusive little Red was standing in her ripped coat and boots, watching him with an almost childish curiosity in her eyes at his reaction to her sudden appearance.  
  
"Hi," he greeted flatly as if he didn't just think of reaching for the axe on the stump outside.  
  
Her bottom lip rolled in, teeth biting down on it as she seemed to be swallowing a giggle. She cleared her throat, forcing it down, before asking calmly, "Should I wear a bell?"  
  
Well, she definitely seemed to be back to normal. Her voice was no longer impeded by a sore croaky edge and the colour was back in her cheeks, this time thankfully not because of a fever. It was like an itch in the back of his head was scratched to know she was okay. He pressed his lips into a thin line, "Just... please stop trynna send me into an early grave."  
  
She shrugged innocently with an apologetic smile to match.  
  
He could have rolled his eyes and tutted at the sheer cheek she'd gained so soon after her sick period, but refrained in favour of a better response. "What are you doing out here, anyway?" She hadn't said much all morning, still wrapped up in her blanket that definitely needed a thorough washing and reading her book curled up by the fire.  
  
"Its lunchtime and I couldn't find you anywhere inside so I made soup," she explained, smiling shyly, then it wavered a little. "Was that okay to do? I know you usually make food but soup isn't too hard and I've been a dead weight in your house lately."  
  
He decided not to mention that her 'dead weight' had been the best company he'd had in months, regardless of how much time it was spent in the toilet or worrying where she'd wandered off too because she doesn't stay in one place even when sick. Honestly, it was like looking after a toddler, but it was better company than some he'd held in the past.   
  
"Yeah, yeah. That's, uh, that's fine. That was nice of you, thanks," he said instead, gesturing behind him to the green-painted cupboard. "I was just trying to figure out how to open this. There aren't any spare keys inside." She looked around him at the cable and padlock as he turned around to see what he could make of it. It was a thick cable wire wrapped around the handles, and the cupboard itself looked pretty strong if a little rusted. He sighed, taking a step back. "No use. Too thick to break by hand." That was a lie. He could easily break it with his left, but for the benefit of the girl and keeping things calm in the household he pretended. _Also, why the hell was he putting up this much effort into acting normal? Why should he care what she thinks? If she runs, good. Another thing less to worry about. _He shook his head at the selfish side of himself and stared pointedly at the cable and padlock as if he could make it burst with some sort of telepathic power he didn't know he had. "I'm gonna need to get something sharp to--"  
  
**_Snick._**  
  
Now, Bucky may have left HYDRA many months ago, but he would know the sound of a blade unsheathing anywhere. He barely stopped himself grabbing the brunette by the throat as he spun around and spotted the weapon grasped in her right hand. It was only the flinch and matching look of fearful surprise on her face that stopped him knocking the blade away and tackling her to the floor in his sudden turnabout.  
  
It was a long while before either person said anything, and then finally Bucky spoke first. "Where did you get that?" he demanded, feeling the cupboard edge press into his shoulder blade behind him.  
  
"My backpack?" she replied with rising intonation, eyes filled with caution as they flicked up and down his body, watching as if he'd strike out at a moment's notice. A solid assumption, all things considered.  
  
Bucky's eyes scanned the red casing and silver blade, connecting the dots to the noises from the night before. She must have been rummaging around in her bag for it. But why would she not have used it in circumstances before now? And why look for it last night? "Why do you have a pocketknife?" he asked as evenly as he could manage, shoving his threat instincts to the back of his head along with all the other stuff he wanted to box and forget. And _that _box was labelled _'not today, HYDRA'_.  
  
"Its mine. And it comes in handy," the young woman answered simply. The two regarded each other not unlike predators daring each other to be first to run for the prey, a long moment spent with a lack of movement from either animal just waiting to pounce. Caving first, but keeping eye contact unbroken, Red moved, circling slowly around Bucky's side until she edged herself a step in front of the padlocked cupboard. The green doe eyes finally shifted as she took the thick cable wrapped around the handles in hand and began to saw it with the small sharpened blade.  
  
Bucky didn't make a move to stop her, only standing stiff at her side with obvious tension in his muscles. It was barely a few seconds before the thunk of the padlock hitting the floor broke his gaze on her hands, down at the floor and then back up to the girl with a hand on the handles. She went to open it, then paused suddenly, brow furrowing. "Do you hear that?"  
  
In the quiet, Bucky did hear it. A faint ticking like the sound of the second hand of a clock, slowly speeding up as the ticks continued, and he quickly recognised what it was.  
  
"Red!"  
  
What happened next happened in exactly a second. The soldier grabbed the arm of the woman and yanked her out of the way a moment before three long metal darts skimmed past her nose, so close she felt the air breeze on her skin, and were sticking out of the opposite wall of the shed, stuck deep into the wood at the velocity they'd been fired out of the sprung cupboard doors. And all three were right at average height head level.  
  
No one screamed. No one spoke. No one dared even breathe as they stared at the things that had come within half a second of fatally impaling the twenty-year-old through the skull.  
  
"...uh." Red ran her tongue over her bottom lip before clicking it against the roof of her mouth. "Okay, then." She nodded at herself as if making a final decision in a silent debate in her mind. "Well, if I wasn't awake before..." she mumbled.  
  
"What the hell kind of storage cupboard has _that _inside it?" Bucky muttered to himself, cursing whoever was last in the house to whatever religious figures he could remember.  
  
"A feisty one?" Red supplied as an answer.  
  
Bucky snorted at the response. "Oh? I didn't know cupboards had personalities."  
  
"It's a new trend," she continued, a smile slowly growing on her face at her own humour as the anxiety clenching her gut loosened.  
  
Bucky couldn't deny the tiny smile teasing the corner of his mouth. He shook his head and glanced back at the open cupboard, scanning the inside.  
  
"Is there... anything else in the house like that?" Red asked, walking around him to see for herself what was so important it was protected with such a deadly -albeit impressive- snare. But to her, it seemed to just be classic garden tools and equipment lining the cupboard shelves. Well then. She was thankful James grabbed her because she could see the gravestone now: _"Here lies Red, she always knew her downfall would be a dirty hoe"_.  
  
"Not that I've found," Bucky answered and reached out, carefully moving a frayed coil of rope off the top shelf and throwing it on the broken chair in the corner.  
  
Red furrowed her brow, folding her arms over her chest. "Don't you own this place? Why do you have booby traps set up?"  
  
"Thieves," Bucky lied, beginning to empty the cupboard of anything he thought would be more useful inside.  
  
"Thieves," Red repeated flatly, not bothering to hide the scepticism on her face over the answer but said no more, instead, glancing down at the floor by Bucky's boots and scooping up her knife dropped in the sudden scuffle. Bucky continued his searching in the background as she turned the silver blade in her hand, running her thumb over the three roughly carved initials in the red casing with a familiar fondness that slowly grew cold, settling as a chill on the base of her neck. She swallowed, and blamed it on the breeze sweeping through the shed from outside, the wood swinging with a sudden bang against the lock, and she winced.  
  
Bucky dropped his final item, a crowbar, onto the chair before shutting the cupboard doors. He picked up the cable wire and tied it with a quick-release knot around the handles, just in case he needed to come back later. Doubtful, but being prepared was a skill not taken lightly in the army.  
  
_Army.  
  
107th. Sergeant Barnes. Commandos.  
  
"Bucky!"  
  
Falling from the train. Hitting the ground and seeing black. Eyes open. Someone is dragging me. There's red in the snow. It's flooding from my arm... where's my arm?_  
  
His flesh hand massaged the muscle curve of the metal one through the thick material of his jacket, eyes squinting at the floor. Sometimes he wasn't sure what was worse: no arm or an arm that shattered his drinking glass more often than softly grasping it. At least it listened to him. That was more than could be said for some other experiments he'd caught glimpses of in the labs. His fingers flexed and twitched at the thought of his arm being controlled by a remote, just as his mind was controlled by those words. Ten damn words and his brain was as scrambled as eggs.  
  
Food. Soup. The kid made soup. The kid.  
  
Bucky dragged his eyes up from the floor to Red stood staring at him, eyes relaxed, studying him like a child would an animal in an aquarium on display. He shrugged defensively, "what?"  
  
"You fuzz out like that a lot, don't you." It didn't sound like a question. It didn't have to. It was obvious with the number of times she'd caught him doing it by now, and slightly embarrassing if he were honest.  
  
"Not when I can help it. It happens more often when I'm tired," he answered, brushing her off quickly.  
  
She nodded quietly. A beat of silence proved the conversation ended there, and the two were left quiet again. Red began looking around the shed interior, doing a double glance over the items in the chair that Bucky discovered looked just a tad suspicious considering the rope and the cable wires and the crowbar. "Soup's probably cold," she said, conversationally.  
  
"Sorry," Bucky said, and kind of meant it.  
  
"Its not unfixable. We have a stove," she shrugged, fingers picking at each other, fidgetingly. "If you're tired, maybe you should grab a nap after lunch."  
  
"Hm?" Bucky was confused a moment before backtracking in his words. "Oh, yeah. Maybe." He rubbed the back of his neck, glancing at the shed door banging against the lock once again.  
  
"Or possibly before. Wouldn't want to find you fuzzing out again and falling face-first into a boiling hot liquid. I don't think your skin would appreciate that." She smiled softly, a little teasingly, and at Bucky's quickly narrowing eyes made a speedy exit through the shed door and up into the house to get the soup heated back up and definitely not because that look was terrifying as hell.  
  
_Well, at least she has a sense of humour, _Bucky thought fondly as he grabbed his things off the chair, kicking closed the shed door behind him before heading back into the house.


	13. Neck

Leaving. She was finally leaving. After nearly a week together in the house, she was finally walking out of the door and out of his life. Or at least that was the plan they discussed over breakfast. Bucky would walk her back into the city, needing some supplies for himself in the house now practically sick of tomato soup and sausage, and they would part ways forever. Or as far apart as the city allowed them to be. No doubt if they both stayed maybe they'd pass each other in a store or on the street from time to time, but otherwise they would move from acquaintances to strangers who knew each other once and everything would be fine again.  
  
Until Bucky entered what used to be the living room but what now resembled more of a messy teen bedroom as the brunette continued flipping everything upside down in a frenzied panic as she searched for something. When he asked her, she replied with one sentence: "I can't find my book."  
  
"Where did you have it last?" He could practically see the comment _"James. If I knew that it wouldn't be lost."_ in a less than polite tone passing through her eyes but remained unspoken. "Where do you remember having it last?" he corrected himself.  
  
"Living room." She gestured around the utter chaos the room now sat in but at least she was no longer in a frantic rush because of her new audience.  
  
So, the two spent the next twenty minutes combing through every inch of the living room, Bucky in a calm and organised manner whereas Red looked more like she was trying to find a bomb with a time limit, until Bucky finally gave up and declared, "unless it grew legs and magically jumped into the fire, it's not here," while throwing a pillow back onto the couch.  
  
"Its Red Riding Hood, not Alice in Wonderland."  
  
She had muttered it under her breath in a whisper from the corner, obviously not meaning for him to hear but the serum and room acoustics graciously helped him catch it. He rolled his eyes and pretended not to hear, telling her they would look through the rest of the house, which she agreed to. And so began the hour-long search for the damned book that started this whole thing.  
  
Bucky had been rummaging around the kitchen when he noticed the shed door blowing in the wind through the open slit of the blackout curtain. He was sure he'd closed that. Taking caution, he stepped outside where the wind chilled his skin almost instantly, and picked up the axe lying dormant by the door. Approaching the shed, he peered inside to see nothing, and almost rolled his eyes at himself for expecting to see something inside. But something was inside.  
  
There was the book, sat alone on the broken chair across from the locked storage cupboard. Bucky almost missed it if the wolf silhouette hadn't glinted at him in the dull sunshine peeking in through the open shed door. He paused, eyes squinting. He picked up the text without a second thought, shaking his head and heading back to the house, kicking the shed door behind him and dropping the axe by the house door as he slid it shut. He heard footsteps on the landing and then the stairs, and his eyes wandered back to the book in his hand with a sudden thought.  
  
_Why had it been outside?_  
  
Red jogged into the room, about to announce her failure before she stopped, staring at the book in his hand and letting out a short sigh of relief. "Where was it?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips.  
  
He paused. "Kitchen. Looked like it slipped behind the kettle," he decided to lie as his own question rang in his mind, handing it over to a confused looking brunette.  
  
"That's odd," she remarked but didn't seem suspicious of him while scanning the book cover for damage. Maybe she just left it there yesterday? But he could have sworn she wasn't holding it yesterday. Or had her backpack with her.  
  
"Yeah," Bucky agreed distractedly, watching her slide the book carefully into her backpack before nodding.  
  
"Right. Well, that's me all packed up, then." She slid the bag over the shoulders of her ripped coat, looking about the same as she did the first time she walked through his door, ready to leave the first chance she got.  
  
The two stood in silence for a long moment, not entirely sure how to say their goodbyes. In the end, neither spoke at all, Red only gave a small thumbs-up before turning towards the door. Flicking the key in the lock, she opened it to catch a face full of fresh rain that had just started to beat down. She took in a long breath, eyes shut as the first speckles hit her, before opening her eyes with a small groan. "Okay, now that's not fair."  
  
Bucky walked up behind her, assessing the weather himself. "Great," he commented as the doorway began to become soaked.  
  
Red held back a protesting whine, leaning on the door as the rain grew louder. "I'm gonna get sick again, aren't I?"  
  
Bucky nodded. "Yeah, probably."  
  
_Let her stay, you coward, _a voice in his head insisted. It sounded like him, but at the same time, it didn't. _She'll just get sick again. And this time with no one to look after her. It will let up soon, anyway,_ it continued to plead.  
  
"Know anywhere around here with a warm fire?" Red's joking question brought him out of his thoughts.  
  
He sucked his tongue, staring at the rain, then the greying sky, before nodding his head towards the living room. "Yeah. In there."  
  
"I was thinking more in the city."  
  
"Shut the door, Red. You aren't going anywhere out in that," he told her.  
  
"But its..."  
  
"Wait an hour, it should be over," he continued, the edge of command slipping into his tone easily.  
  
She didn't hesitate much longer, shutting the door on the rude weather and locking it again. "Okay."  
  
An hour of waiting turned into two. And two turned into six. By the time it stopped, outside had grown dark and both strangers had grown tired. Both silently berated themselves for not letting the girl go when she'd planned to, certain illness be damned, but instead just spent the day as normal while sporadically checking the window for the rain to let up. When it did, they looked at each other and nodded. Another night together because the universe demanded it. This was getting ridiculous. But they would bear it because tomorrow she was leaving. Even if there was a fucking _monsoon_ washing up against the front door she was going to leave. Bucky knew he was already playing with fire, the flames licking at their heels the longer they spent together.  
  
And the flames finally caught up to them that night.  
  
Bucky had been dreaming. It was rare for him to dream but that night deemed him worthy of it. Or unworthy, depending on how you looked at nightmares and sleep terrors.  
  
It had started innocently enough. A day out with faceless friends, a picnic -he thinks- with large open fields and dressed in dungarees and sundresses. A voice calling his name "Bucky!" and sunshine beating down.  
  
But then the sun began glowing brighter, and that golden glow turned red, and the sky turned to fire. There was screaming all around, explosions left and right and a terrible ringing in his ears. His vision was blurry, nothing quite standing out in the fuzzy picture as he stumbled along the dirt path before him, hands on either side of him, both flesh, touching the material of sandbags as he stumbled towards some sort of reprieve.   
  
And then Bucky was falling. But he never hit the ground. A train whistle in the distance. A trail of blood leading to a metal table. Bright lights shone in his eyes. He tried moving away but his head was trapped in something. Electricity flooded through his head, straining his body and tensing his muscles with a scream.   
  
A soldier breezed past his face running only to fall back and stumble at the rain of bullets shooting through his vest. His body laid dying in the corner of the trench, a distant remembrance of his name echoing in Bucky's head as the brown hazel of the fallen soldier's eyes grew cold, his last sight on this earth was Bucky helpless to help him.  
  
Things were out of order. Flashes of the trenches and HYDRA's lab merging together. His old colonels were the doctors and the doctors were dressed as soldiers. Explosions became lab lights flashing in his eyes. _Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038._ Then there was nothing but black.  
  
When his vision came back, there was a single soldier on the other side of the trench. That one soldier crawled over to Bucky, his body frozen to the workbench now stuck in the crawlspace. The soldier smiled crazily and raised a giant syringe into the air, ready to strike. Bucky leapt up fast despite his previous paralysis, hand grasping his throat and pinning the rabid soldier to the floor of the lab.  
  
And then suddenly his hand was around something very real, something warm, and there was an actual neck being pinned to the mattress by his hand. And two small flesh hands were pushing at his face. It took a moment for the yelling voice to enter his senses, at around the same time he realised he was staring down into familiar doe green eyes that were staring back at him, wide open and much more frightened than the tame curiosity he was used to. It was enough to snap him out of dreamland, and realise she was hoarsely shouting his name and trying to shove him away.  
  
"James..."   
  
Bucky realised what he was doing. And he yanked his arm away from her, scrambling up the bed until his back hit the headboard, panting for breath he didn't know he needed. He'd just...  
  
The brunette coughed as the air returned to her lungs, hands flying up to her neck as she pulled herself to sitting up, gasping lightly and staring dazedly at Bucky from the opposite end of the mattress. That wasn't what she'd been expecting when she tried to wake Bucky from his nightmare, but she knew she should be annoyed with herself for not having thought of it as an option.  
  
Bucky tried to calm himself, shaking off the nightmare with exaggerated head movements. The metal hand fisted into a ball, the flesh one curled around the cold wrist in a laughable attempt to stop it should it decide to act by itself and reach for Red again. She shouldn't have even been in here. But she had been. And he knew he had come somewhere close to choking her out completely.  
  
Red's fingers traced gently over her neck but it was with divided attention. Her eyes were staring. Not at his face but at the weapon, at the arm. Bucky remembered he wasn't wearing a long-sleeved shirt or his gloves. There was no mistaking what it was that she was staring at. He just hoped he could come up with a viable excuse as to why he had the most advanced mechanical prosthetic limb this girl had probably ever seen in her life.  
  
"I can explain." His voice was shaky and forced, but at least it was there.  
  
"You don't need to," she said, plainly, tilting her head as her eyes roamed over the arm. Bucky somewhere in his mind noted she was looking awfully relaxed for someone who'd just had a brush with the land of the unconscious. Perhaps it was the adrenaline simmering behind her eyes making her endorphins confused.  
  
"No, Red, I really need to explain why--"  
  
"James, I know who you are."  
  
The room froze colder than the arctic. Someone walked over his grave. Fucking _something _happened that made his body tense up ready for a fight. But he had to hear her out first.  
  
She cleared her throat, not a painless venture for her windpipe just now, but she spoke clearly enough. "James Buchanan Barnes. Sargent from the 107th. Howling Commando. More recently revealed to be the Winter Soldier."  
  
"What?" Bucky blurted, his mind instantly racing into fight-or-flight territory. "How- how could you know? Who told you?" His panic and guilt were slowly being squashed by a hazy fury as the information sank in. "Who do you work for? Who are you with? Who _are _you?" The soldier felt his anger rising, the indignation that she was spying on him this whole time, and he'd fallen into a trap of some sort because he thought that for once in his life since all this happened, he could help someone rather than hinder them.  
  
"Just a curious girl with a good internet phone package. I swear, I'm not with anyone. In fact, that's kinda the main reason for me coming out here." She held up her hands in surrender, shuffling as far back on the mattress as she could without slipping off the edge. She kept his gaze, silently pleading with her eyes that she was telling the truth.  
  
His eyes scanned her up and down, mind locked in Asset Mode, looking over her for anything that could shed light on who she really was. Was she with anyone? Was he needing to run? Was she lying? Annoyingly, he didn't think so. But just because she wasn't lying didn't mean she was completely innocent. "For how long have you known?" he questioned, tone betraying his displeasure easily.  
  
She kept her hands up, pacifyingly. "Since I learnt your name. I looked you up online and found articles and the Smithsonian website, but I didn't know it was really you until I saw the metal arm. I just wanted to be sure." She nodded to his cradling of the weapon in his flesh hand, but the grip had loosened at the knowledge of her knowing.  
  
However, he did believe her then. But when would she have looked him up? She said she had a good phone package. But she never mentioned a phone until now. What the hell else was she hiding? And why didn't she say that she knew, before? She leaned his name nearly a week ago.  
  
He groaned, running his hands over his face before staring at her. "Oh, by Jesus, Red. Why didn't you say something?"  
  
"Does it matter?" she asked calmly.  
  
Bucky almost yelled with the pure indignation the question made flare in his mind. "Yes, it matters! Of course it fucking matters."  
  
"Why should it? It doesn't exactly change anything, James. You've been so nice to me. You rescued and protected me even when I wasn't asking. You've never laid a finger on me to hurt me-" She held up a finger to stop his protest. "-_on purpose._"  
  
He didn't have an argument for that, but he was still pissed. "If you've read about me, you know how dangerous I am. You know who I am. A monster in a man's body."  
  
Red finally dropped her hands into her lap with an eye roll. "James, I'm not afraid of you. You took me in when I needed help, looked after me when I was sick, and protected me when I was in danger. If you were the monster those articles made you out to be, then I wouldn't still be talking, would I? Corpses don't talk, after all."  
  
"You nearly were," he warned with a growl.  
  
"That was out of your control," she said.  
  
"Was it?"  
  
She narrowed her eyes, arms folding. "So you say you meant to choke me?"  
  
"No. No. I was..." He reached out his hands, fingers curling around the air as he imagined the phantom doctor injecting him within reach. He dropped them to his knees. "No. I didn't mean to choke you," he confirmed, looking away to the floor.  
  
"Do you want to hurt me? At all?"  
  
"No," he said, eyes still on the stained carpet.  
  
She hummed gently, watching him carefully. "Would you feel bad if you did actually hurt me?"  
  
_I just did,_ scolded his mind scathingly. "Probably. You've not done anything wrong. You're not one of the bad guys, I think." His thumb ran over the indents of his metal appendage.  
  
Red nodded, motioning a hand in his direction. "Does that sound like a monster to you?" She made it sound so simple and easy, even though the whole situation was the complete opposite. How could she be so calm?  
  
“What if you’re wrong?” he asked, eyes finally moving back up to her doe eyes no longer widened by fear.  
  
Those eyes would be the death of him, keeping her gaze on him with wary tenderness. “Then that’s the hill I'll die on. But I’m not taking it back.”   
  
Bucky stared at her, teeth set in frustration at her essentially just plain stubborn defence. She was like a child. And it would be her downfall one day soon. "You're ridiculously naive," Bucky proclaimed.  
  
"Absolutely. But I stand by my beliefs." She nodded in agreement.  
  
Silence again between them, more comfortable than the last but no less meaningful. She watched as Bucky's expression minutely shifted between emotions, most falling on the negative end of the spectrum. She resisted reaching out physically, knowing it would end in hurt and opted instead just for a soft call of his name. "James..."  
  
"I nearly killed you," he muttered, lowly.  
  
"You didn't," she replied.  
  
"I could have," he said.  
  
"And I could have killed you if I was determined enough. It doesn't matter." She brushed him off again. Was she just determined to treat this whole thing like it was normal? Who the hell was this girl? She shifted on the bed to try and catch his eye, it having wandered away in shame and regret. "Please talk to me."  
  
"About what?" he shrugged.  
  
"Anything. Your nightmare, the weather, what flamin' colour the underwear you're wearing right now is, I don't care. Just talk. I can almost hear your thoughts from here and none of them are healthy."  
  
Bucky was silent for a long while. This person, this _stranger _who knew exactly who he was and some of what he'd done, was asking him to keep talking. She wasn't running away screaming to the authorities. She wasn't reaching for her bag and running for the door. He wasn't making a dash for it.  
  
She was definitely insane. He'd had a feeling for a few days, but now it was confirmed. The woman was unmistakably mad. A lunatic.  
  
Then again, so was he. "Grey."  
  
"What?" He'd taken so long to answer Red had forgotten the question, eyebrows furrowing at his sudden chatter, her fingers idly tracing the sore patches on her neck.  
  
"My boxers are grey," he said, feeling a bit ridiculous for admitting it, but there wasn't really much she could do with his boxer colour, right?  
  
A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth, smothering the giggle she wanted to share of fear of Bucky mistaking it for mocking and kicking her out. "You wanna know what mine are?" she asked with a gentle smile.  
  
"Black. They're the only ones I've seen in the washing machine," Bucky answered matter-of-factly.  
  
"Well, yeah, they go with anything." She shrugged.  
  
"I thought that was nude."  
  
"I don't know. I don't really know anything about fashion, honestly. The fashion police would come after me with torches and pitchforks if they saw what I normally like to wear around my house." She joked softly, the smile on her lips growing a little easier with each word.  
  
Bucky mentally rolled his eyes at the girl. Absolutely insane. "Are you really not scared?" he asked, struggling to keep the disbelief out of his voice in the question.  
  
She considered him for a moment, eyes moving up and down his hunched frame. "I'm wary. But I'm not scared," she explained with a shake of her head.  
  
Bucky gave up. The girl had made her mind up. And unless he was willing to throw her into a river while tied up -which he was absolutely not prepared to do- there was no point in trying to change her view. It would change on its own if and when he truly snapped, he knew. "You need to get out of here," he told her.  
  
"Yeah, I've overstayed my in your room while you're just trying to sleep," she agreed. He didn't correct her. He'd meant she needed to get out of the house, out of his life, before she got really hurt. Tonight had been a fluke, the next time they may not be so lucky. "You're just sat here with your grey boxers and I'm taking up space on the bed. I'll leave you to it." She stood up and stretched out, bones cracking in her back and her neck as she rolled them.  
  
Bucky looked up at her. "How did you know I was having a nightmare?"  
  
"Noises. They were loud, and you were groaning and things were hitting the wall -probably the headboard- and just general intuition. I mean, it was either going to be you having a nightmare or you having a really intense... uh... session... with yourself."  
  
It took him a second to understand what she was implying and vaguely gesturing to before his head was falling into his left hand with a half-cringing sigh.  
  
"Yeah, exactly. So I think we should both be at least a little bit happy I walked in on the former and not the, uh, not the latter."  
  
He peeked through his fingers. "Red."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Go to bed," he said.  
  
"Right. I will do that. I'm gonna go to bed. Now. Right now. To bed." She motioned towards the door with both hands, and it took her an extra second to actually move towards it, waving at him as she closed the door behind her. "Goodnight," she said just as the door clicked shut.  
  
"Goodnight," Bucky replied softly, though he doubted she heard him. He shook his head, hands carding through his hair from the roots to the ends, metal joins catching slightly painfully on some strands, before lying back down on the bed. He shook his head again, running the last ten minutes through his mind in a quick downward spiral of self-hatred and lecturing over both getting found out and nearly strangling the girl he'd been trying to protect. He lifted his left arm, the metal glinting in the low light of the bedroom before he let it fall back to the bed. "Punk," he huffed fondly for her before rolling onto his side and letting his eyes slip closed for a dreamless sleep.


	14. Negotiations

Red was the first one to wake up that morning. It was a mild surprise not to wake to the smell of cooking meat or the gentle sounds of utensils scraping against metal pans but she figured she was in no position to complain. In fact, this opened an opportunity if she was the first one awake. This was the last morning she planned on spending here, even if she opened the front door to the four horsemen of the apocalypse staring back at her amidst a sea of death and destruction raining from the sky, she was leaving.  
  
Pulling herself out of bed and into her last fresh change of clothes courtesy of Bucky's insistence on her laundry, she grabbed her packed backpack and headed downstairs to the kitchen. A quick glance around told her James would need groceries soon but there was enough to scrounge together a mediocre breakfast. Rolling up her shirt sleeves, she nodded to herself and got to work.  
  
As she tended to the eggs in her pan, she reviewed the events of the night before.  
  
To say last night could have gone better would be an understatement, but to say it could have gone worse was equally valid. Perhaps not the best way to reveal to an ex-assassin with over two dozen confirmed kills in the last fifty years that you knew his identity but she had saved him from some form of cardiac arrest, she felt. Even though she knew if she hadn't intervened in the first place it wouldn't have happened anyway, at least no one got shot. Might as well rip the bandaid off and deal with the impending pain then and there.  
  
Her fingers skittered over the tender bruises on her neck, Red feeling the sting as she laid the tips there gently, and after a moment of contemplation, pressed down on the skin, face contorting into a grimace. It was only a brief second of burning pain before she was picking up the spatula again, letting the marks' sting linger. The new bruises only served to replace the old ones on her wrists which had now faded into her skin. The pain was almost grounding to her. The situation was disorienting by itself, a soldier-turned-weapon via illegal experimentation during the first world war and given a bionic arm? When she'd searched his name and found his matching picture she hadn't fully believed it, but then she saw it- _felt _it, not just the arm but the animal underneath the skin of the man, and it had all flooded into her like a tidal wave.  
  
She understood she was in danger just standing there. Just standing in the kitchen and plating up scrambled eggs like a domestic housewife for her husband. But she almost couldn't be bothered to care. She'd seen the fear in his eyes when he realised he was hurting her, and the shame when he admitted he didn't want to do ever again. So she brushed the feelings under the rug as usual and plated up the rest of breakfast.  
  
"Did you cook?"  
  
Just in time too, as Bucky stood in the doorway with slightly mused hair and a confused expression on his face as his eyes focused on the counter.  
  
"You had a rough night." Red shrugged, taking the two plates and laying them exactly where James would set them himself each morning, afternoon, and evening together.  
  
James stared warily at the two plates, watching Red as she walked casually around his kitchen filling water glasses. He hadn't failed to notice the bruises ringing around her neck, holding the metal hand in his flesh one as a wave of regret filled his stomach, and suddenly the rumbling he'd heard on the stairs at the smell of fresh food seemed far far away. When Red set the glasses down at either plate and sat in her place to eat, he pulled up his own chair and sat down.  
  
"Thanks," he said, but took a moment before picking up his fork and trying some. Not half bad, and not even poisoned. Double win.  
  
"Least I could do," Red replied, eyes running over his face and then his arms, a small sense of satisfaction coming over her when she recognised he hadn't bothered trying to hide his metal arm.  
  
They didn't talk through breakfast. It wasn't an awkward silence, but in fact, it was sort of liberating. Bucky was never really one for small talk now and Red never really felt the need to fill the silence anyway. Perhaps they should have been talking, about last night, about moving forward, anything really, but the two seemed to just be allowing it to go undiscussed for now.   
  
Bucky gave a compliment or two to the breakfast once they both finished, and he didn't argue when she sped to do the dishes herself. He decided to let her do the small things like helped her in some way. He didn't miss the quick glances every so often in his direction though they didn't seem to be for anything other than concern for his own feelings rather than any danger she may be in. Bucky didn't know whether to be pleased or insulted. He resolved to be calm instead. Clearer heads prevail and all that. He wasn't innocent either, having been thinking since stepping down the stairs on what to do, and his ideas weren't exactly conventional, so the conversation he had planned would need to be introduced delicately.   
  
After breakfast the two moved into the living room silently, Bucky tossing another log onto the fire and Red settling on the end of the couch with a book. The red blanket had returned to its old place on the couch arm and her coat was folded in her lap with her backpack leaning against her leg, eyes focused intently on the pages that he was sure she should have read at least a dozen times in the time she'd been in his presence alone.  
  
Steeling himself and righting his plans in his head, he turned to her, standing by the fireplace and resting his flesh hand on the mantlepiece above. He cleared his throat. "Red, we need to talk."  
  
Bucky was startled by how quickly Red's expression changed from casual mulling around to pale fear in the space of a second, thinking she would faint from the sudden change. But the expression relaxed as soon as it passed over, giving way to some sort of familiarity before that was too passed over, soon back to casual. "I'm all packed. I was planning on leaving right after breakfast since there's no rain today," she said, pulling her coat on quick and her backpack over her shoulder like she was ready to bolt that second.  
  
"That's... not what I was going to say." Bucky stopped her with a raised hand before she could scurry away, the opposite of what he'd been trying to do for the last week or so. But last night changed something in his perspective, and now he had to face the facts that something out there was screwing with him, so he decided it was best to bite back as hard and unexpected as he could. "So, somehow, even if you leave today I have the feeling something is going to keep dragging our asses back together," he evaluated.  
  
"Just bad luck, probably. It tends to follow me around." Red shrugged, still seated on the couch but sparing a glance at the door through the doorway of the living area.  
  
He shifted in place, slightly uneasy. "Whatever it is, it's there. And at this point with everything that's been going on, we seem a bit... stuck together. Don't we?"_ Like a fucking magnet with superglue for added effect,_ Bucky's mind bitterly grumbled at him.  
  
"I'm sorry." she apologised, fingers playing with the page corners of her book.  
  
Bucky's brow drew together. "Why are you apologising?"  
  
"A lot of things, really. To start, if I hadn't run into your apartment you wouldn't have to deal with any of this. You'd still be back there living comfortably and not in the middle of Germany with a girl you barely know knowing too much about you and causing unneeded trouble. Not to mention getting sick as an already impromptu houseguest."  
  
"It's done now, Red. No use picking at it." Bucky brushed off her concern easily. "So, since it seems that neither of us can be separated from the other for more than a few hours before being dragged back together again by some unforeseen thing, I have a suggestion." He had her attention, curious doe-eyes watching him intently with a tilted puppy head. He paused, taking a second to think before pressing on. "For the sake of stopping before we get physically tied together and against the better judgement of our situation, I'm thinking that maybe you should stay here in the house as a more long-term compromise," he told her in a tone much calmer than he felt. "If you wanted," he added realising how stalkerish he sounded.  
  
She stayed silent. Bucky figured that was better than her running away without a second thought. But she stared at him with those doe eyes as a few different distracted emotions passed through before they focused again. "_"Against the better judgement?"_" she repeated, face scrunching up in confusion.  
  
"You have to understand: the longer you're here, the more danger you're putting yourself in, whether it's intentional or not. There are people looking for me, the Winter Soldier, who are the kind of people to not hesitate at murder and extortion to get me." Bucky let his arms drop to his sides, leaning more weight on one leg than the other. "And then there's just me. You might not feel scared now but I've done worse things than what you've read. Things that would make you sick with loathing just by visualising them and send you screaming not just to the cops but to a mental hospital. You'd barely believe the kinds of things I've done for them or just... just to survive." He dropped his eyes to the floor, shaking his head with a self-conscious sigh. Was he really suggesting this?  
  
"Ignorance is bliss, I suppose," Red responded dryly.  
  
Bucky snorted.  
  
A pause, and then, "you said you wouldn't hurt _me_."  
  
"I said I didn't wanna. That's different. I can't promise you anything proper." He pulled his head back up to level her with a serious expression, a practised mask over his internal conflict. "I'm not in complete control of my own mind, it would take longer than I would let you stay here to explain everything properly, even then you'd probably have packed and scattered before the end. Which is why your other option and the one I say you should do - that no matter what you think seems to be going on here, you need to run. Run far away and forget I exist. Just pretend like everything since the apartment was a dream and go find a better path elsewhere."  
  
Red fell silent once again. This time the supersoldier wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not. But he was patient and he waited until she was finished chewing her lip to speak. "I don't believe in fate or other-worldly bull, usually. But whatever it is that's going around, it doesn't influence my choice either way. And since its either here, the train, or hotel jumping, I'd prefer to stay here than on my own." she answered quietly, eyes dropping to where she fiddled with her book in her lap, worrying the pages with her fidgeting fingers. "And maybe the company might help you... regulate?" She seemed uncertain of her wording, looking up with a furrowed brow and red-bitten lip.  
  
Bucky's insides settled and flipped all at once. He took a deep breath in, running his hands over his face before dropping. "I need a coffee. I'm gonna make a coffee. Do you want one?"  
  
  
"If we're both staying here, we need to lay some ground rules." Bucky took his seat at the kitchen table, setting down two mugs of coffee between them.  
  
"Rules are good. Rules are safe." Red nodded, reaching to take the mug that resembled more of a teacup with the wide shape.  
  
Bucky took the remaining mug, a little bunny design dancing across the lower part of the ceramic. "First, I need to know who you are really, and why you're here. It's not so normal for a woman of your age to be out in places she doesn't recognise, on her own, with nothing but a backpack and a phone. We'll be talking about that in a minute, but for now, I need to know. Where are you heading to? Is anybody following you or are you meeting up with people?"  
  
"I told you I'm on an adventure holiday, wandering around for my own amusement. No one's with me or looking for me or waiting for me and I hope no one is following me because if they are, I didn't condone it." She looked understandably disturbed by the idea. "And I'm guessing you're out here because you're running away from the people after you." His quiet nod was registered. She paused, then narrowed her eyes at him. "Is that what happened at the station? When you just jumped on the train with me all of a sudden?"  
  
"I thought I recognised an agent on the platform. They looked like they were following me so I made my choice," he explained, taking a sip of the beverage in his hands and licked his chapped lips. "Your real name-"  
  
"I don't like it. Drop it."  
  
The answer was a little less than vicious in his mind. And not knowing her name could bring up problems if she was important to someone. She could be part of a dangerous organisation, her family could have been involved with him in some way before. But he saw the look in her eyes, a heated fire smouldered by a smoky cloud of anxiety about the question, and he decided to afford to let it go. "Alright, Red. I'm not gonna ask for your life story," he said, and she quickly settled. He moved on. "Why do you have a knife?"  
  
She gulped her coffee. "Its mine. And for situations like outside. I've never stabbed anybody with it and wouldn't use it on another person unless it was self-defence, and even then only in dire circumstances."  
  
"Why did you go outside yesterday?" he followed up. She tilted her head, confused. "I found your book in the shed when we were looking for it, not the kitchen, and the door was open," he accused.  
  
She closed her eyes for a long moment, realising she'd been caught, and reopened them with honesty. "I was looking in the supply cupboard for anything I could take that might help me. Maybe the rope or pliers."  
  
"You were going to steal them?" he asked, receiving a cautious nod as his tone grew severe. "Stop stealing things, I'll buy what we need. I know you said you're not a kleptomaniac but you better drop that "occasional" habit right now or you're not staying." It was a threat. One she would heed with a fast nod. Bucky nodded, feeling the matter concluded. "Another thing, your phone. You need to be careful with it. I can't promise its always safe to use here in case someone picks up on the signal and I didn't think to check signal trackers when we first came here as I don't have anything traceable."  
  
Red tapped her fingers around the edge of the mug in a random rhythm. "This is really serious, isn't it?"  
  
"I warned you. If you're staying, you need to recognise the risks and I won't apologise for telling you exactly what you're walking into."  
  
"I'm staying," she reaffirmed.  
  
Bucky chewed the inside of his cheek with a hum. "This is a safe house but it was owned by my old organisation. However, it's been forgotten in pages of paper files, which makes it ideal for us. I suggest keeping that pocketknife on you at all times just in case and don't leave the house without telling me. Always take the backstreets here and don't let anyone follow you."  
  
"Okay."  
  
Bucky finished his coffee in a few quick gulps, putting the mug down and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Okay. I'm pretty sure that's everything for now."  
  
The small silence passing between them lasted a few minutes at least, the still quiet intermittent with hushed swallows of Red still to finish off her beverage. But when the silence was broken properly, it was by Red's question. "Does... do nights like last night happen a lot for you?"  
  
"Some nights are better than others," James replied.  
  
"If it happens again, should I ignore you or wake you up?" Red asked.  
  
Bucky's eyes fell from her face to the glaring bruises poking out from the neck of her jacket. Flashes of the trenches and the doctor's lab flared up in his mind, as did the burning hatred which bubbled gently under his skin. He pressed his fingers into his palms on both hands, cursing the lesser sensitivity in the unnatural one and chewing his tongue.  
  
"Ignore me," he finally grunted.  
  
"Just ignore a raging, shrieking, hundred-year-old man, former Howling Commando and World War Two veteran, ex-soldier ex-assassin ex-whatever screaming his used-to-be-brainwashed guts out next door until he deals with it himself and eventually wakes up?"  
  
He nodded.  
  
She gave a thumbs up. "Piece o' cake."


	15. Veterans

"Stop looking around like that. You're making yourself look suspicious."  
  
Red stopped her wandering eyes for long enough to mutter something under her breath as they walked inside. Bucky caught the back-end _"oh, **I **look suspicious?"_ of her little speech though the rest was lost to the light hubbub of the grocery store. He raised an eyebrow at her, daring her to speak louder.  
  
"Your outfit. It's the classic on-the-run outfit from every spy book and movie ever - not very inconspicuous. Sure, it would be perfectly fine somewhere like where we met. Here though, it kinda screams "I'm a fugitive in hiding, come and get me"." she said a little louder but hushed enough the passing shoppers didn't spare any questioning looks.  
  
"It's classic because it works," Bucky grunted, walking further inside so they didn't stand in the way of anyone else.  
  
It had been decided since Red was going to stay that both he and she would need more in the house, clothing most of all, so the first Monday after their discussion they had headed for the closest store that would provide sufficient supplies.   
  
"And that's what we're here for, anyway. I have to get groceries, and I don't know what's in your backpack right now but I know you don't have many clothes and I don't have any... uh, ahem, feminine hygiene stuff." Bucky looked away as he talked, as blunt as he normally was it wasn't a conversation a supersoldier with over fifty confirmed kills was used to having.  
  
_Seems like his head isn't the only thing stuck in the '40s,_ Red thought.  
  
Bucky pulled out his wallet, taking out a few notes and passing them over. "So, take that and go find some things for yourself."   
  
Red glanced around to see if anyone else but her thought this looked suspiciously like a sugar-daddy moment before shaking her head, dismissively. "I have money. I got my cards replaced the day we got here," she revealed.  
  
Bucky paused, sighing internally at yet another thing about her he'd been unaware of, before shoving the money and wallet back in his pocket and gesturing to the clothing section of the store. "Just go, please. I'll be over there in a minute." They would be having words about this.  
  
Red turned and walked in the opposite direction as he went to pick up their food first. If they were staying in the house for a while longer, he could afford to buy more perishable foods but still stock up on those that would last and save them the constant trips. One thing he'd learned in his years being chased and hunted by various organisations at the same time was that a man with a habit was never hard to find.   
  
After filling his basket, he saw the edge of her blue coat poking out from behind a hat rack. He was about to remind her that perhaps she needed a new one after the rip in the sleeve before her quick, urgent _"James? James. James, look."_ made him quickly forget.  
  
Bucky glanced at the brunette who when he last checked was neither grinning nor donning any headwear, but now she was, and looking quite proud about it too. He couldn't understand why she was so happy, it was just a simple baseball cap, but then he squinted at the writing across the front and felt physical pain in his attempt to hold back from rolling his eyes.   
  
"Not funny," he grunted dismissively at the [hat](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/EMIAAOSwnDZT6nwu/s-l300.jpg), looking away to a nearby jeans display.  
  
Red dropped her smile, huffing, took it off and put it back on the rack, a cross between a pout and scowl forming on her lips.  
  
Bucky didn't like that expression. It didn't sit right with him. And the next thing he knew, he was reaching for the cap and slipping on his head with a cough to get her attention.  
  
Red looked up, brow furrowing then relaxing, and smiled giddily. "Aw, for me?"  
  
Bucky tore the cap from his head quickly and put it back on the rack, moving on towards the clothes that would actually fit him, leaving Red smiling a small victory to herself as she browsed her own selection.  
  
Turning a corner towards the women's section, Red was suddenly attacked at the waist by a squealing creature that nearly knocked her over onto her ass. Looking down at the creature, she realised it was a child, perhaps six or seven with hair yellow as straw, dressed in blue overalls with her hair up in pigtails.  
  
_"Sorry,"_ the child apologised in German before looking behind herself and giggling at something she saw, quickly running around Red and in the direction of another part of the store.  
  
As quickly as Red had been barrelled into, two more children of similar ages and appearances breezed past her, one's pigtails the colour of bark and the other red brick dust. Both were squealing together in a fit of giggles as they passed when finally, a larger child, a male with clawing hands and a playfully growling noise chased after them. His own chuckling gave the entire scene a lighthearted feel as he chased his sisters across the store into another random aisle, much to the tutting of the mother that walked briskly behind the group muttering about this being a constant in behaviour every time they went somewhere public.  
  
Red watched them all disappear into another part of the store and felt a smile tug at her lips. Cute. Red didn't have siblings, and in a way, she was thankful because, in her experience, her many many cousins were more than a handful. Especially at parties. Not that the extroverted introvert attitude didn't help much. And being the oldest out of the kids but the youngest of the adults meant she was usually delegated to babysitter. Not that she minded. Children were the ones who still believed in fairytales, after all.  
  
  
After picking a few things off the racks in his own sizes, Bucky found Red in the toiletries section trying to decide between two bodysprays, one scented as apples and cinnamon and the second in lavender and chamomile.  
  
She asked for his preference, and his instant his mind registered the apple and cinnamon smell, he was suddenly back in his mother's kitchen watching her roll pastry for a pie, him sitting across the table from that young blond boy, Steve, both of them scrubbed free of the mud they'd been play-fighting in moments before. He says play-fighting when he really means he had snuck up behind Steve when he'd been drawing a bunny that had been polite enough to sit still for him long enough to sketch (he had always been good with animals, Bucky had a feeling) and shouted "boo!" at him. Steve's sketch and pencil had gone flying, and the blond had tackled Bucky into the mud in retribution, then it snowballed from there.  
  
The lavender and chamomile struck up a separate but shorter memory, a redhead in a funfair. Delancy? Darcy? Deborah? She smelled like fresh lavender with a daisy-print dress and delicate rose lips. He'd been sweet on the girl, meeting her early that morning and persuading her he could win a stuffed bear in her name. He didn't manage it but she'd been nice enough to trade him a kiss on the cheek for the three bucks he blew on the games. She had to be a hundred years old by now.  
  
In the end, the apple and cinnamon won with a simple "that one", the supersoldier not wanting to consider just how far after his time he was now stuck with no way back home.  
  
It still begged the question, however, would it really be better if he'd been left in his own time? What would he be? Who would he be? Before all this started, before all the stuff with Zola and the experiments and the brainwashing? He didn't know.  
  
But right now?   
  
Right now was not then. Now had changed. And now Red was watching him like a doctor in an animal testing ward trying to fathom how the lesser brain of a primate worked.  
  
After reminding himself to stop fuzzing out so often before he freaked her out enough to call a mental hospital, he realised Red had agreed, naive to his silent memories, and they both headed to the counter without another word.  
  
Bucky remained quiet after that, only speaking the bare minimum to converse with the cashier, someone who long ago Bucky may have done some playful flirting with, but not now. He didn't say a word as his items were checked, and he also didn't say a word when that 'Veterans' cap appeared on the conveyor belt.


	16. Days gone by

The days began to blur together as a routine began to form. Before either of them knew it, a month had passed. It was sometime in March, Bucky remembered, when he'd first noticed Red had... days. It had been maybe once or twice by now, but it still stuck out among her common behaviour.   
  
One morning he'd been downstairs making breakfast and drinks as usual, but Red never came downstairs. He called her name twice and she still didn't respond and he heard no footsteps on the landing. Reaching for the freshly washed skillet as a natural precaution, he headed upstairs, knocked on the door, and then busted in when there came no answer. But there'd been no reason to worry, or at least not to worry over what he'd first been worried about, because she was lying in bed facing away from him, alive and unharmed.  
  
"Red?" He asked cautiously to what could have easily been a dead body, but a murmuring noise of affirmation discarded that thought quickly. He lowered the skillet in his hand to his side. "Red, you alright?" he asked, leaning on the doorframe.  
  
"Yeah." She sounded awake but bored. Not tired, but... something in her voice had changed.  
  
"Breakfast?"  
  
"Not hungry, thanks," she replied in that same bored tone.  
  
"Oh," Bucky said, a little dumbly. It's just she'd never not been hungry before when he fed her, or at least if she started to argue about the amount of work he did in the house in comparison he could shut her up and get her to eat with his regular army-commanding glare. But now she didn't seem to have the will to even argue.  
  
He cleared his throat. "Uh. Okay." he nodded at her back, giving her body the once over which barely seemed to be moving even for breathing, but nodded and went back downstairs.  
  
The same thing had happened at lunch. Fair enough. He'd had days where he couldn't eat for most of it. When it got to dinner he was concerned, but going back upstairs garnered the same reaction as the morning.  
  
"You've not eaten."  
  
"Not hungry," she said, still facing away and looking like she hadn't moved since lunch.  
  
"Are you getting sick again?" he asked, wondering if the lack of energy or emotion was down to her feeling ill.  
  
"No," she said.  
  
Bucky decided that was as much as he was going to get out of her. He didn't want to presume and compare her mood to those he sometimes found himself in on random days where he wanted to do nothing but lie in bed and forget the world existed outside his room, so he left her alone for the rest of the night and went to bed with the issue picking at the back of his mind.  
  
But yet again there'd been no reason to worry, or at least not to worry over what he'd first been worried about, because the next morning it was as if the day before never happened. Red was back to her active if somewhat timid personality and eating perfectly normally again. He wanted to ask but he kept to himself. Everyone could have off days, best leave them to it.  
  
It had happened again maybe a week and a half later. Bucky this time had left toast on a plate on the bedside table in the morning, and after doing his lunch and dinner checks, he found the plate empty by bedtime. He never mentioned it the next morning.  
  
Which led up to now, a month after agreeing to stay together against better judgement. Red sat on the floor resting her back on the sofa behind her as Bucky sat on the adjacent sofa, a fresh notebook picked up from his recent trip to the grocery store after realising his other was nearly full. It was funny that for a book that was nearly full, it had almost nothing helpful in it. Sad, but funny.  
  
"Can I read your notebook?" Red's voice plucked him out of his thoughts to look at her, a copy of some crossword thing she'd pulled from the magazine aisle clutched in her hands.  
  
He kept his cool over what was definitely an unexpected question, only raising an eyebrow instead of staring at her like she was insane like he wanted to.  
  
"Properly, this time," she added almost bashfully, clearly remembering last time she'd gotten her hands on it.  
  
"No," Bucky answered, opening the first page of his new book and picking up the plain black biro that had come wrapped with it.  
  
"Please?" she shuffled onto her knees, eyes soft and innocent. Way too innocent for what she was asking.  
  
And not even "why". No. She didn't want to know _why_. She just wanted to sate her curiosity. Her damnable curiosity.   
  
Bucky stared at her for a long time, those green doe eyes watching him. Sometimes Bucky stared at her like he was now - as if she was a puzzle. A one-million piece puzzle jumbled in a pile at his hands and he couldn't even find an edge piece, to begin to try and unravel her thoughts.  
  
He left his pencil between the pages and closed the new notebook in his lap. "I'm don't think you know what you're asking to read, Red. They aren't pretty pages. They aren't the fairytales you cherish so much."  
  
"I know," she told him, much to his incredulously raised eyebrow for the second time in two minutes. She wasn't arguing, Bucky noted, yet at the same time she wasn't backing down at his warning. She sighed and sat back on her butt, long legs stretching out towards the fire. "James, if you don't want to hand it over, don't. It's yours. I can't make you share your stories." _Even though I really want to,_ she thought silently as she went back to her crosswords, chewing the end of the pen she'd found buried in the bottom of her backpack.  
  
Bucky glanced at the old notebook he'd tucked between the sofa arm and cushion, crumpled and old. It was filled with so many things, so many scraps, so many parts of a puzzle that he just couldn't put together. Not yet anyway. Past conversations, past missions, past memories happy or otherwise. Some might not have even been real, nightmares fueled by a healthy dose of PTSD desperately blurted out onto a crinkled page. Was that really the kind of thing a twenty-year-old girl wanted to be reading?  
  
He plucked the book out of the sofa crease, and with considerable hesitation handed it over to the waiting brunette who had been polite enough to stay silent during his internal conflict. If she wanted to know, fine, but she could never claim he didn't give her fair enough warning.  
  
"I don't know what you expect to find. As I said, it's nothing pretty," he reiterated as she took it from him, flicking open to the first page, a series of ten Russian phrases written over and over again, scribbled over until they were illegible as if he could scribble them out of existence.  
  
Red casually turned the page without comment. "If all anyone ever read and wrote was pretty pages and fairytales, not a single one of them would be human. A man willing to write down his fears as well as his fancies is more human than anyone."  
  
Bucky huffed, shaking his head and sitting back on the sofa as he allowed her to read what little he had left of his old memories. "Sounds like a Wise-Woman," he muttered, remembering the women that lived around his family area, all old and withered but not without helpful advice from a lifetime of experience.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"I said you sound pretty wise for a twenty-year-old," Bucky repeated a little louder.  
  
"Do I?" She didn't look away from the page, her voice distant like she hadn't even registered what he said. She had, but the words didn't have much meaning for her. She wasn't wise, she was just pointing out something that was common sense. Wasn't she?  
  
  
By the time they decided to go to bed, Red had taken the notebook with her, not even halfway through yet.  
  
Bucky had been watching her out of the corner of his eye. She was talented at schooling her expressions for the most part (either that or she was just numb to the ramblings of an ex-assassin) but certain looks in her eyes had slipped through every so often. They ranged between shock, discomfort, and pity mainly, but there had been a few small smiles at some of the lighter memories, especially the one about Steve and the bunny. Red made the mental connection to Captain America having read the Smithsonian report and smiled as she imagined a small Bucky and scarily thin Steve wrestling around in the mud.  
  
So he let her keep it for the night, and the next morning halfway through breakfast, she slid it across the table towards him with a single nod.  
  
"Thank you." She smiled, swallowing her next bite of sausage.  
  
Bucky hummed into his coffee cup. "I wasn't expecting a thank you."  
  
"What were you expecting?" she questioned, soft and curious.  
  
"You out the door, no looking back," Bucky replied, putting his mug back down and tossing the notebook into its old drawer.  
  
"Nah thanks. Food's too good." Red grinned as she stuffed another bite into her mouth.  
  
Bucky huffed and rolled his eyes.   
  
"But if I can say something without overstepping." She raised her fork like her hand in a classroom in front of a scary teacher. Bucky hummed, chewing, so she continued, "If you ever wanna... talk about anything, whether it be things that are nice or maybe not so nice, I'm cheaper and easier than a therapist." She shrugged cutely, before pausing and furrowing her brow as she stared at the wall. "Wow, did I make myself sound like a prostitute just then."  
  
Bucky snorted a laugh, shaking his head. "You didn't."  
  
Bucky didn't catch all of her next mumble but something along the lines of _"I doubt anyone would have me anyway" _his senses managed to grab. He furrowed his brow, looking up from the fatty pieces of bacon he'd cut off to really look at the woman in front of him already engrossed back in her own food.  
  
Her eyes were what he usually noticed, that smokey forest green that always seemed to doe-like and innocent, and from this close, he could admire the flecks of gunmetal grey he saw running through the irises. He guessed that was inherited, most likely from the father.  
  
Her eyebrows were softly arched, a shade darker than her usual mousey hair. Her face was softly rounded, her skin smooth but dry in some areas like she'd been scratching at it. Her skin tone itself wasn't as perfect as porcelain, a peachy hue with some flushing pink in patches and paler areas in others, but the light freckles covering the bridge of her nose and speckling over her cheekbones were noticeable over all other colours. And her lips were just this side of rough and rosy pink, the result of habitual biting over a long period of time.  
  
Bucky's brow creased. In his opinion, he thought she would look at least pretty by most people's standards, but the quiet mumble had been honest about her own opinion, not like she was fishing for a compliment. He didn't give her one, but instead continued picking at what was left of his breakfast and moved his mind on before he could latch onto the thought and start picking it apart like the bacon on his plate.


	17. Stain

Red knew as soon as she woke up that morning that there was trouble ahead. Turning over on her side, whining as she recognised Bucky's voice downstairs calling her for breakfast made her stomach churn, and then immediately after cramp up in a familiar pain she knew all too well.  
  
_Aw, not today. Please have mercy._  
  
Her stomach wasn't listening. And with Bucky calling her name she knew she would just have to deal with it without her usual countermeasures. She called back affirmative and threw the covers off of her, sitting up and rubbing her face before stretching out and standing. She pulled down her shorts to step out of them before freezing as she glanced down at the cream cotton material. Cream cotton that was now suspiciously stained in the dead centre. The same thing with her underwear, but even worse. And then she had to look at the bedspread behind her and wince as she realised what had happened.   
  
"Red?" She heard footsteps ascending the stairs and quickly threw the covers back over the evidence just in time for James to walk in. "Red, you awake?"  
  
"Nothing," she answered far quicker and more suspicious than she planned to, and James' eyes were instantly narrowed in concern.  
  
"Red, what's wrong?"   
  
She tried to clear her expression and wave a hand at him, dismissively, taking a step to the side to cover any part of the bedding that wasn't hidden by the cover. "Nothing. I'll be down in a minute," she gave a weak smile. She could James wasn't buying it way before he walked into the room and threw the cover back. "No, _wait_."  
  
Too late. There was the evidence, a bright crimson patch staining the bed where her pelvis had been lying during the night in all its bloody glory. She screwed her eyes shut and turned her head away, not wanting to see his expression.  
  
All credit to him, James didn't react too badly. The first thing he did was scan her body, trying to see if she had any physical injuries or if she'd been attacked, instincts on alert and running multiple different scenarios through his head about an outside attack or if someone else was in the room with them. He then looked at her with a different idea in mind and glanced at her stomach, her lower arms, and her thighs, finally spotting the thin red trail in between her legs leading up into her sleep shorts.  
  
Oh.  
  
She stayed silent and waiting, and Bucky watched her expression that seemed as if she was waiting for something to happen. But he didn't understand what. He brushed it off and looked back at the stain on the stark white sheets. "Hydrogen peroxide for bloodstains," he mumbled mainly to himself but loud enough Red could hear. He reached forward and started stripping the bedding. "There's some in the bathroom under the sink. Go get it and a large bowl."  
  
"I'm sorry-"  
  
"Hurry before it sets in and gets worse. Then go shower and hand your clothes to me and I'll see if I can't save your pyjamas." He ignored her protests, balling the stained sheets up and starting to head downstairs.  
  
  
Less than twenty minutes later, the sheets were soaking in a bowl and Bucky had allowed Red, who he noticed smelt of the apple and cinnamon spray she'd bought, to carefully scrub at her own shorts and underwear while sat at the living room table. Since stepping out of the shower, words hadn't been discussed between either of them, just gestures and short looks.  
  
Eventually, Red spoke up, still scrubbing at her pyjamas with one hand, the other on her stomach. "Sorry about the mess."  
  
"There's nothing to be sorry for. Accidents happen." Bucky replied casually, much more casually than she'd seen some people handle a natural thing for a woman to have happen to her, sat on the sofa and flicking through a newspaper he'd picked up last time they were out.  
  
"Yeah, but... it's not like I spilt orange juice. This is blood," she said, pausing her hands and looking over her shoulder at him.  
  
"Good observation," he said, turning a page.  
  
She sighed, frustrated at something, and returned to the stain. "You shouldn't have to look at this," she said quietly, not to him but to herself.  
  
"I'm used to it," he replied anyway.  
  
"That's my point," she said.   
  
Bucky glanced away from the paper with a furrowed brow.   
  
Red put the washing down and turned in her seat side-on to face him. "I doubt this is helpful for your situation."  
  
Oh. Right. That's why she was so bothered by the whole thing. She had been thinking the blood might trigger something for him but Bucky had hardly spared it a thought since believing she'd been attacked and was covering it up.  
  
He dropped the paper into his lap and spoke confidently, "I'm not squeamish, Red. I served in the army and HYDRA and I saw things I didn't want to, sure, but I was used to seeing blood way before any of this happened. I had a... friend. Steve. He was always picking fights with people much bigger than him and I'd find him with bloody noses and bruised cheeks in alleyways. I would bring him home and fix him up, make soup and watch him paint while I read or told him about this broad I saw earlier that day."  
  
Bucky blinked when he finished. He'd never remembered that much in one go, and yet that bundle of memories had all of a sudden run into his brain like a tumbleweed. He felt a faint smile tug the corner of his lips, prideful, as he remembered the memories with much more vivid detail than others that had crossed his mind before.  
  
Red seemed to share his smile, even if for different reasons. "Sounds nice," she said, softly.  
  
"It was just us in a crappy apartment together but it was home." He shrugged one shoulder, still half-smiling at the memories that continued to flood in like a river through an open gate once he'd grabbed the first ones.  
  
"I know what you mean," she said, her tone carrying a breezy air of familiarity to something she thought about privately.  
  
Bucky nodded, distractedly, before snapping out of it and glancing around the room, quickly and purposefully.  
  
"Notebook's there." Red nodded to the opposite end of the sofa he sat on, and he reached and grabbed it quickly along with the pen before beginning to scribble down all he could remember before it escaped him again.  
  
  
"Not hungry?" Bucky asked once they'd settled down for a reheated breakfast and he'd noticed Red picking at her food while rubbing her stomach with the other hand.  
  
"Not really," she said with a soft shrug but continued to nibble at the pieces on her plate with great effort.  
  
Bucky was halfway through his already, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Is there anything else you'd have?" He didn't want her hungry.  
  
"Do we have anything sweet?" she asked hopefully with her head ducked.  
  
Bucky thought then shook his head. "Its never on the priority list when we go grocery shopping and I'm not going to let you eat spoonfuls of sugar."  
  
"But it helps the medicine go down," she said in a soft sing-song like she'd remembered a lyric from somewhere.  
  
Bucky was definitely confused, brow furrowing. "What?"  
  
Red looked at him for a long stretch of silence before her expression fell flatter than the pancakes on her plate. "You've never seen Mary Poppins." It wasn't a question, and she looked practically scandalised, which only furthered Bucky's confusion. He'd heard the name Mary Poppins and had gathered the basic gist of whatever it was, but no, he'd never seen it. Red huffed, pushing a piece of pancake around her plate with her fork. "Well, I know what we're watching later. My phone screen should be big enough for us both, right?" She began mumbling to herself and Bucky found himself wondering why she would bother trying to introduce him to this thing.  
  
What had she said? She would help him "regulate"? Well, maybe he should let her introduce him to these things. Having a personal modern-day experienced person around would help him understand the smaller details of the world around him that simple people observing wouldn't supply him with.  
  
He shook it off once he realised Red was looking at him in the way that told him he'd fuzzed out. He cleared his throat, taking another bite of his breakfast. "I'm sure there'll be a few sweet shops in the city. We can go after breakfast," he told her.  
  
"You don't have to do that," she said, twirling her fork around in her hand.  
  
"And I'll find that hot water bottle I saw for you," he added, brushing over the concern as easily as when dealing with the bloodstains.  
  
"You really don't have to bother so much, James. I can take care of myself."  
  
"Yeah, but the thing is... you don't have to, Ste- Red." He caught himself at the last moment, but not fast enough he could pretend it didn't happen.  
  
Red didn't seem to be able to pretend it didn't happen, either. "I remind you of him, don't I? Steve Rogers." The brunette acknowledged Bucky's quiet nod and set her fork down, full attention on the supersoldier. "Have you read up on him, lately?"  
  
"He was mentioned in the Smithsonian exhibit and I looked him up a while ago but... no memories sparked until months later."  
  
She hummed. "You could try again. Maybe something different will pop up this time."  
  
"Maybe." he agreed and shovelled the last of his food into his mouth, brushing his hands off and glancing over her half-finished plate. "You managed as much as you can?" he asked and received a small nod. He stood up, grabbing both plates. "Right. I'll do the dishes then we can go."  
  
  
As it turned out, there were a few different sweet shops near them. One in particular Red had been drawn to, it had been designed in a 1900's style vintage style with more sweets and drinks than Bucky had ever seen in one place at one time before. The rows upon rows of rainbows had made him briefly dizzy. Up until this moment, he'd never really been tempted to walk inside a confectionary store before, he either never needed to or just didn't like to be reminded of how much things had changed. Plus he hardly had the same sweet tooth he used to.   
  
Red seemed at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, recognising nearly every thing in the aisles and completely spoilt for choice.  
  
He left her wandering the aisles like a child and browsed his own selection, eyes flicking between other customers whenever he turned a corner just in case. He would, however, be lying if he said he hadn't been tempted by some of the things he recognised from his own time, even with the different packaging: lemon sherbets, flying saucers, barley sugar twists, liquorice, and pear drops.  
  
In the end, he allowed himself the lemon sherberts and liquorice in two small plastic-wrapped bags. Red had found her preferences in fudge and toffees, two bags of each, showing them to Bucky before glancing at what he had, then she disappeared and brought back another bag of each with a smile. Bucky nearly made a motherly remark about rotting teeth or getting a sugar rush but forced his mouth to stay shut when he saw the little faltering of her smile when another cramp gripped her. He nodded in approval instead as they approached the counter and bought what they had.  
  
  
The rest of the evening was spent on the couch, Red buried in her book as Bucky held her phone playing Mary Poppins. He could hear her humming along whenever one of the songs began to play and even caught her mouthing some of the dialogue when she thought he wasn't looking. He couldn't help but find it adorable she was having fun cuddled up with a book and a hot water bottle on her stomach, chewing toffees, as he watched movies on her phone chewing on liquorice. It struck him how natural this seemed to the outside world, and how relaxed he felt, how... normal. It was a feeling he hadn't had in a long time.  
  
"Let's go fly a kite..." Red's quiet mumbling broke him from thought as the movie had moved onto its finale. She turned on her side and looked up at him. "Hey, have you ever flown a kite, James? I haven't."  
  
Bucky had to think hard on that one, searching all corners of his mind for a memory that included a kite. "I don't remember," he answered honestly. He couldn't even tell if he might have and just couldn't remember. Maybe it would come to him at some point.  
  
Red hummed and turned back around to her book, saying nothing more about it and resuming her humming.


	18. Shelves

Bucky would like to think of himself as patient and understanding, often in ways most other people were not. But when Red had stayed in bed for three days in a row with barely any movement even to eat, his patience ran as thin as the ice he walked on daily. And though he knew he shouldn't really be thinking about it, he couldn't resist the itch to figure out why she had her off days. Periods were an option given the last one she had and the mood swings that came with it, but these couple of days happened infrequently unlike her cycle which happened regularly. Cabin fever, maybe? Even he can admit supersoldiers got antsy from time to time.  
  
Either way, Bucky was getting the brunette out of that bed this morning and into a healthy mind frame even if he had to drag her there.  
  
...admittedly, dragging her there would slightly defeat the purpose of establishing a healthy mind frame in the first place but he was growing desperate. And today he was not having any of the shut-in attitude she was giving him, intentional or not.  
  
It burned in his mind how ridiculous this situation would have seemed to him just mere months ago.  
  
Pushing the thoughts aside as well as his breakfast plate, he climbed the stairs two by two before ending up outside her room door. Knocking on and hearing no response, he poked his head in to see her lying in bed as usual, with her back facing him. He'd noticed how normally she slept facing the door, but on days like this, she faced away. "Red, you awake?"  
  
A confirming hum.  
  
He entered the room properly, leaving the door open behind him. "Please get up."  
  
"Where are you going?" She didn't turn around when she asked, she barely shifted at all.  
  
"_We _are going outside to walk," Bucky corrected, folding his arms.  
  
"Can't you go alone?" She was talking barely above a whisper, no energy in her voice. Matter of fact, she sounded exhausted. But she'd been in bed for three days. How could she be exhausted by doing nothing for three days?  
  
"We _are _going." He turned on his army voice. She didn't move. "Red." She still didn't move. She appeared to refuse to even acknowledge the commanding tone that usually made her jump to attention. He softened, "Red, is everything alright?"  
  
A grunt.  
  
"Cramps?" he guessed.  
  
"No."  
  
"Pain of any kind?"  
  
"No."  
  
Well, that was helpful. And meant she had no viable excuse to refuse. "Then come on. We're going exploring the city." He kept up the command tone but curbed the harsh edge a little.  
  
"No," she said.  
  
"You've been here for three days and hardly eaten. You need to move sometime," he said but to no avail. Resorting to bribery he said, "If I make you something to eat, will you have it?"  
  
No words. Not even a shrug.  
  
The ex-soldier steeled himself and set his mind. "Right. I'm running you a bath and you are getting in it, even if I have to push you into the water."  
  
"You'd drown me?" Her head turned a little, but not enough to see her face past the messy brunette waves curling around it.  
  
The question gave him pause, blinking at the insinuation that had not even passed through his mind before that moment. She hadn't said it with malice but it had seemed just this side of bitter for him to brush off as her usual humour.  
  
He rolled his shoulders, stepping back towards the door. "Just... try to pull yourself out of bed," he told her before exiting, pulling the door closed with a click behind himself. He stayed on the landing for a moment, shaking his head and giving a look over his shoulder at the door as if it had suddenly swung open the wrong way and smacked him. Then he looked back down at the floor, shaking his head once more and stepping into the bathroom, starting to run a bath.  
  
Red listened silently as the door closed behind him and returned to her internal dialogue of yelling at herself to get up.  
  
She was disappointing and annoying him. Again. How great a house guest was she? But she hadn't listened to herself all morning since the sun had first peeked through the blinds and into her eyes, and then he'd walked in and she'd just wanted him gone. Talking took energy she didn't have to give, and the more he talked and tried to get her to talk the heavier her head got. But then he mentioned the bath and that sparked her interest, and some low lying energy she didn't realise her body had reared its head like a curious meerkat. She felt like she could breathe again once he'd closed the door, having decided her morning routine himself, and this time when she tried to move her body to get up, it listened.  
  
  
Bucky turned off the hot tap, running his hand through the water and slight suds courtesy of some random bubble bath that had been buried at the back of the bathroom cupboard. It was a little cooler than he would normally have the water, figuring it was likely Red would like it cooler than the scalding temperature he enjoyed. She could change it if she wanted. There were two fluffy towels sat on the toilet lid along with fresh clothes that had just dried from their run in the washing machine.   
  
_"You'd drown me?" _her words echoed through his mind seconds before the scene played itself out in his fucked-up imagination. Her lying inexpectant in the bath, perhaps eyes closed, and him, holding her head below the water and watching her squirm with soulless eyes. Maybe there would be blood, maybe there wouldn't. Perhaps he would cover her face with a towel and waterboard her first before cutting her misery short with the real thing.  
  
Bucky had to practically slap himself to get him out of the Asset's mindset. He wasn't that person anymore. But his brain had been rewired to go one way, and it was all he could do to hold the current back and away from his betraying hands. He remembered that night so vividly, he could still feel the phantom pulse under his fingers, her neck delicate in his grip. So fucking delicate. Paper and scissors, rubber and heat, glass and stones. So delicate. So breakable.  
  
The door behind him creaked open and he looked at that doe-eyed girl who's gaze was glued to the floor, body curling in on itself like a defence. But for once it didn't feel personal.  
  
"Warm enough?" was the first question he asked, trying to catch her eye.  
  
She didn't lift her eyes but slowly stepped around Bucky and stuck a hand in, waited, then pulled it back out. "It's fine."  
  
Bucky nodded, satisfied though not really, and moved towards the door. "Call if you need me."  
  
He didn't hear a response. And after glancing back over his shoulder seeing her start to strip, he quickly shut the door in his own face and walked into the living room, busying his hands with his notebook and pen.  
  
He heard no sounds from the bathroom for at least half an hour but as soon as he sat up to check on the girl, he heard the bath draining and further moving around. He waited until Red emerged from the doorway, hair wet and slightly wavy, dressed in the clothes he set out and looking better than when she first entered the bathroom, her eyes able to leave the floor this time.  
  
After a few moments, he asked: "feeling better?"  
  
She leaned on the doorframe, arms crossing. "Sorry," she said before her eyes trailed away.  
  
Bucky decided not to make this a thing. "Let's go out."   


They headed out together and ended up in the market with stores that were lined with knickknacks and small little things for hobbies or little trinkets to fill up empty spaces on the mantlepiece. Red was as quiet as she usually was and Bucky wasn't all that much better, picking up a few essentials for the house as he passed them. Red waited at the counters with him without complaint but also without anything of her own.   
  
They later entered one shop, _Golden Afternoon_ or something if Bucky's memory served something other than darkness, and the vibe was instantly different to anywhere else they had been. It was like passing through a veil set in the doorway. He shook it off and went to browse the shelves on one side as Red headed for the other, noting the distinct lack of other customers in the store with them.   
  
The brunette wandered up an aisle for mismatched clothes and accessories, picking out a large flared top hat off a hat rack to examine. The felt-like material was black but the stark orange ribbon tied neatly around the base with peacock feathers sticking out in greens and blues really brought it to life. Well, perhaps once upon a time the ribbon had been tied neatly but now it was a little haphazard, almost like it had seen some things. Heard some secrets it didn't want to divulge, maybe travelled to a few places not many others would go, experienced strange adventures all on its own. It felt... weird in her hands. Like it radiated energy that left her fingers buzzing.  
  
She turned around and waved at Bucky before truly catching his eye away from a chessboard with most pieces intact save for the black king's broken crown. She waved the hat in indication, then gestured it at him for him to try on. He raised an eyebrow and shook his head dismissively, so she pouted as she put it back on the rack and went looking elsewhere.  
  
Bucky moved on from the chessboard past a few other games and toys lining the shelves until he turned into a "miscellanous" section which seemed a little pointless considering most of the things in here could class as "miscellanous" but when he turned the corner what he saw they really meant was "stuff we can't put anywhere else so here".  
  
Little items stacking the shelves ranged from stress toys to scruffy teddy bears and dolls to sports equipment, there was even a little scene of ceramic sheep being chased by a lost looking shepherd girl around and around on a rotating mechanism. He gave a small huff of amusement to that one. He almost ran into Red he was that amused, and at the girl's entranced state looked at what she was examining quietly in her hands.  
  
Red had picked up something random on a whim and instantly adored it. She'd reached for what she thought was a little handmirror but when she opened it up found it was actually a pocket watch, a proper one with little carved symbols covering the silver metalwork. It was still going which was a surprise in itself and even more so that it told the actual time of day. She'd smiled and gone to put it down only to notice Bucky's sudden appearance at her side and nearly jumped five feet into the air.  
  
"Are you going to get that?" he asked softly like he didn't want to disturb the quiet of the rest of the shop.  
  
Red automatically went to say no, but after glancing down at the watch in her hands and running her thumb over the symbols etched into the cover, she reconsidered. "Yeah. Why not?"   
  
They walked together the rest of the way down the aisle, both intermittently stopping at something catching their eye but nothing interesting enough to pick up. At least until the end of the aisle when Bucky stopped in front of a pile of wool wound up into balls with two knitting needles sticking out of one like sad candles on an even sadder birthday cake.  
  
He reached out and picked the ball up, thinking back to that scratchy blanket he'd thrown over Steve when he was sick, now finding another piece of that memory to be his mother having knitted that blanket. His mouth turned up a little at the corner as the full scene played out in his mind, memories of a warm fire and watching Steve read and sketch while he looked after the little troublemaker after a fight.  
  
Bucky did not miss the little mutterance of "old man" under Red's breath as she saw him pick the wool and needles up. He bought them just to spite her. She'd snorted and sent herself into a coughing fit as a result.  
  
He smiled, _karma_.  
  
  
It wasn't until late in the evening when both of them were sat at the table in the living room, Bucky attempting to remember how exactly his mother did this without stabbing somebody with them when she dropped a stitch while Red sat happily to the side, book open in one hand and tracing the indents of the pocket watch sitting on the table with the other.  
  
She tried to ignore his frustrated mumbling as best she could, she really did, only snickering at certain creative curses he muttered whenever he dropped another stitch (so many she was surprised he had any left) until about the fourth time she'd had to restart a page because of his yelling outbursts. It made her sigh, drop the book, physically take the knitting needles and wool from his hands and start doing it in the _correct _way all while he watched her with his hands still poised to drop another stitch.  
  
He watched, dumbfounded, as she expertly picked up what he messed up and started knitting lines quickly and efficiently. Much more like his mother and less like someone who had never come into contact with a knitting needle or even wool for that matter, she continued for a long stretch of silence, managing about three rows before Bucky finally spoke up.  
  
"Where'd you learn to do this?" he asked, dropping his hands to the table.  
  
Without breaking her stride, she answered, "my grandmother showed me. Well, I say showed me but what I really mean is she spent the better half of two weeks frustratedly attempting to get me to focus on something other than books or spinning around in a circle humming a recent pop song on the radio. We eventually managed to knit a passable version of a scarf for my mom." Her hands slowed a little as her expression dropped in thought. "I wonder if she still has it..."  
  
Her hands slowed to a stop.  
  
It was the first time she'd mentioned anything specific about her parents since explaining why she spoke German, and that was months ago now. Maybe he should ask but he won't. The dissociating look on her face warned him to back away from the subject the same as he would back away from a wild animal, hands in the air and ready to run if things got ugly. So he never mentioned it, and Red went back to knitting, returning to her fast pace and even maybe a little quicker than before.  
  
As she worked, Bucky furrowed his brow looking at her expression. Her brow had creased slightly, and her tongue was poking out of the side of her mouth just the tiniest bit.  
  
It was... cute, Bucky found himself thinking, and felt that smile from earlier return to his face.  
  
Red glanced away from her work and then did a double-take towards Bucky, hands pausing, eyes squinting before her face broke into a wide smile.  
  
"Why are you grinning like that?" Bucky asked.  
  
She dropped her hands, still holding the needles. "You were smiling. It was adorable." She giggled.  
  
Adorable? No one in their right mind would ever think to call the Winter Soldier, a hundred-year-old man, former Howling Commando and World War Two veteran _adorable_. Other than this girl apparently but Bucky had never really thought her mentally sound anyway, he supposed.  
  
"I think I preferred it when you didn't talk so much," he joked, using his commanding tone to be sarcastic rather than scary for once with a smile at the corner of his mouth.   
  
It killed the smile on Red's face faster than if he'd shot her at point-blank range. It killed the lighthearted mood of the room along with it, even the burning fire that was so warm moment before seemed to grow cold. It was jarring, to say the least.  
  
"I didn't mean that seriously," he said as if that was an excuse, but she didn't reply.  
  
He looked at her. That heated fire smouldered by a smoky cloud of anxiety flared up in her eyes, the same one that had appeared when he'd questioned her name, which similar to then was swiftly squashed and beaten out of her expression to plaster on a blank face instead, eyes tracked on the navy wool on the table. But it had been unmistakeably there.  
  
"Red, I was joking. It was a bad joke and I'm sorry. If I ever say something that oversteps a mark, you can tell me," he continued backtracking fast, cursing himself internally at the shitty attempt at humour.  
  
She shrugged and shook her head. "I'm just being sensitive."  
  
"It's okay if what I say makes you uncomfortable. You tell me and I'll try not to say it again," Bucky told her. The feeling in the room blanketed his shoulders, the thick cold surrounding and suffocating. He tried to shake it off. "I really was joking, doll."  
  
Red didn't comment on the "doll" and Bucky didn't really know where it came from. It took a long time before she answered.  
  
"Okay. I believe you." And she seemed to be okay with leaving it at that. It didn't sit completely right with Bucky but he was just glad she seemed to relax a little in her chair. Not all the way, still stiff in her shoulders like she was ready to bolt at any second, but it was better than a few moments before.   
  
Bucky nodded and sat back in his seat, hands fidgety without anything to do with them. He tapped his flesh fingers on the tabletop, glancing out of the window and shying away as something flashed in his eyes. It was gone a second later but it had been there and it wasn't from a moving car. He squinted out of the window to the street but saw nothing that could have caused it.  
  
Red picked up the knitting needles back into her hands. "It goes both ways you know."  
  
"Hm?" He glanced at her.  
  
"If I say something makes you feel weird, I'll try to avoid it in the future. But you have to be just as honest about these things as you expect me to be."  
  
Bucky knew she didn't know what she was asking for when she was asking for that amount of honesty, but he lied and said "okay, I'll be honest" anyway to placate her. He didn't want to send them into another mood like that. That had felt wrong and on his list of things to avoid at all costs in the future.  
  
The girl nodded, satisfied, and started another row with the needles. "Good. And while we're in the mood for being all honest with each other, I can honestly tell you you're shit at knitting."  
  
Bucky snorted.


	19. Footsteps

April came quickly. When Bucky picked up the newspaper from the nearby store he'd had to check twice. But he was right, it was definitely four months into the year. When he told Red, the brunette had looked vaguely surprised but soon returned to what she was doing (wrapping up the sweets she still somehow had from the candy store) and reacted no more than a shrug. She seemed blasé about the point but he didn't question it, flicking over to the next page.  
  
Halfway through his paper, sitting on the sofa with Red by the fire, eating, he flinched away from something flashing in his eyes. He squinted, looking out the window to try and catch whatever it was, but just as soon as it had appeared it had gone, just like last time.  
  
"What's up?" Red perked her head up at the paper rustling in his hands as he angled to see out of the window more clearly.  
  
"I keep thinking..." he trailed off, giving up on it with a head shake. "Nevermind."  
  
"You mean you're paranoid, James," Red said flatly.  
  
"When you've done the things I've done, there's no such thing as 'paranoid', Red," he told her, squinting at the window again but finding nothing, just like last time.  
  
She hummed. "Deep. And I thought _I _was supposed to be the wise one around here."  
  
He shifted in his seat, forcing himself to relax with more than a little effort and opening up the paper again. "Certainly the weirdest one here," he mumbled under his breath.  
  
Red scoffed at him, softly. "Excuse me sir, but I do believe that title belongs to you."  
  
"Definitely you." Bucky nodded.  
  
"Dude, you scrub every surface in the house twice before going to bed," Red pointed out.  
  
"You wash your fork, plate, and knife in that order," Bucky countered.  
  
"You don't shower with the door closed," she replied.  
  
"You smell the books you read." At the deer in headlights look he received, Bucky smirked. "Yeah, I've seen you upstairs checking the shelves you said you didn't find interesting, as if something else will just magically appear in front of you. And then you smell the pages."  
  
Red spluttered indignantly. "Well _you _fuzz out five times a day and it looks like someone's pressed "PAUSE" on your personal remote."  
  
"You mumble in German when you’re reading."  
  
”Your accent grows thicker when you swear.”  
  
”You stick out your tongue when you’re concentrating.”  
  
"You hum Mary Poppins songs when you wash the dishes."  
  
"Uh, that one's on you. You showed me that movie." he accused, sitting up and folding his paper to the side.  
  
"Not having seen that film before is a crime!" she cried. "It's a cinematic masterpiece."  
  
"Cinematic masterpiece," he repeated mockingly regardless of how much he agreed to the point. "Do you have any other suggestions for "cinematic masterpieces" or was that one kind of a one-hit-wonder?"  
  
She huffed but it was good-natured. "Well, the suggestions I have are probably nothing you'd enjoy since none of them are older than “The Kid”."  
  
"Hey, I was three when that movie released."  
  
Red looked at him for a long blink and a pause. "_Fuck_, you're old." Bucky raised an eyebrow like a disapproving father, so she quickly continued, "I do have a suggestion. You might even find it familiar since it has things from ancient times like Egyptian pharaohs and the Roman Empire."  
  
"I'm not that old," he remarked.  
  
"I know, I know. It's just one of the only things I can tease you about so I'm gonna milk it for all its worth." Red sat up on her knees, pulling out her phone and unlocking it with a swipe.  
  
"Why do you want to tease me, Red?" he asked as she searched for the film she wanted.  
  
Red paused, the question making her think about the comment she had honestly just said off-handedly. Eventually, she decided on "I don't know. Friends tease each other, right?"  
  
"Yeah, they do." Bucky agreed, eyes drifting away for a moment.  
  
Red sat further up on her knees, thumb paused in its typing. "Are we not friends, James?" she asked, worrying the inside of her bottom lip with hesitancy.  
  
"I... I do think you're a friend, Red."  
  
"You hesitated," she said.  
  
"I did," he nodded, looking at her, "because I haven't had someone I can talk to like this in a long time. Years. And I mean years. I'm hesitant because it makes me vulnerable and that's dangerous for someone like me. It's also dangerous for you, too."  
  
Red considered that, mouth scrunching to the side as she thought it over. She knew the anxiety she had over trusting James and that was with knowing almost his life story, so it would make sense that he would feel similar when knowing next to nothing about her and how he’d been on his own for longer than he’d care to tell. It put him at the disadvantage with the lack of knowledge and all the bridges he’d had to burn up to now, and for what some people would describe as a “control freak”, that would play heavily on his fears about the two even just being in close proximity normally, let alone with practically every intelligence organisation known and unknown on his back at the same time. He had something he could call his own now, a friend, a confidant, something to protect, and it freaked him the fuck out.  
  
"I get that. Kinda. You've been alone longer than I have," she said in that nonchalant way when she understood that she didn’t understand all of his side, but was still be bothered to try regardless of how futile she knew it might be. She shook her head and sat next to him on the sofa, phone at the ready and pressing play before he could argue. "Anyway, movie."  
  
  
  
The film she’d chosen played with his mind a little more than he’d care to admit. Even though Red had assured him it was special effects (which led into a long conversation and definition reading of CGI) seeing miniaturized people on-screen was something he found just plain weird. Night At The Museum itself was just plain weird.  
  
But Bucky couldn’t help thinking that some of the miniatures would have been helpful when he stepped through the front door of the safehouse less than a week later and froze on the spot when his foot clicked.  
  
Red, who had nearly bumped straight into him at his sudden pause, asked "what?" in a confused and slightly irritated tone that Bucky did not appreciate looking down where his foot landed.  
  
"Red, I need you not to panic when I say this," Bucky began, an order that immediately Red disobeyed by starting to internally panic at his unnaturally calm tone and stock-still positioning. A beat of silence, then the supersoldier explained, "There is a mine sat behind the door and I just stood on a pressure plate connected to it."  
  
Red didn’t scream or outwardly freak out at the news, but her eyes did widen considerably and she lost her grip on the shopping bag in her hand. Scrambling to pick it up and lay it to the side before the milk escaped, she took a deep breath. "What are you going to do?" She glanced over his shoulder and into the house to see a rectangular mine sitting looking politely back at them.  
  
"_I _am going to stand here. _You _are going to walk around and go through the back door so you can disarm it. It's very easy, I'll talk you through it."  
  
"Just disarm a mine while you stand on a trigger without blowing us both up in the process? Oh yes, that sounds incredibly easy." Red’s alarm seeped through and bled into her tone as sarcasm - a natural defence, assuredly.  
  
"Red, I can't move and we can't outrun it. It's an anti-personnel mine designed for making sure people you want dead _stay dead, _and it gives its victims very little wiggle room once armed," Bucky explained, jaw set and focusing on not wobbling with one foot slightly elevated and the other on the ground outside.  
  
It wasn’t the first time he’d been in contact with such a weapon, it wasn't even the time he'd been in such a predicament with a deadly explosive before him ready to blow his ass to Kingdom Come, but he hadn’t yet been the one with his foot on the trigger. He remained calm, steadying his breathing into a rhythm and turning his head towards the brunette whose eyes hadn’t left the bomb since spotting it.  
  
"Red.” He brought her eyes back to him. She didn’t look completely terrified but she certainly wasn’t laughing. He supposed just a few minutes more in the presence of their “friend” and the full reality of the situation would set in. He needed to get her moving before then or they were both fucked. “You can do this. _Trust me_," he implored, staring her dead in the eye to get her to focus on anything else but the bomb at that moment.  
  
Red looked at him for a long while and swallowed.  
  
  
She wiped the key hidden under the brick off on her jeans, unlocking the sliding door and entering the kitchen, walking carefully up to the floor divide between the kitchen and the foyer and locking eyes with Bucky. "Okay, I'm here," her voice only shook a little.  
  
Bucky watched her carefully from the doorway, eyes flicking between her and his trigger foot. "Gently approach it and try not to knock it over. It's filled with C4 and if the firing wire breaks or touches the explosives, we're both out."  
  
"Now tha- that's comforting," The brunette fumbled her words with a breathless laugh and crept up to the bomb like she was approaching a sleeping lion. Well, she never planned to approach a sleeping lion but she also never planned to approach a bomb and yet here they were.  
  
When she knelt on one knee behind the mine, Bucky nodded. "Alright, now, you see that switch at the back? Move the "safety" to the "on" position."  
  
"Bombs have safety switches?" she asked, brow creasing in Bucky’s direction. He gave her a _“not the time”_ face and she looked down quickly, reaching forward and as softly as possible flicking the switch until a green light brightened by its side. "Okay, okay, it's on."  
  
He nodded. "Now remove the blasting cap from the detonator well.”  
  
A beat of confused silence as Bucky remembered not all parties present were in the army. "The screw-on thing. Take it off. Now, being careful not to disrupt the explosives, remove the detonator wire. Do _not _let ittouch the sides."  
  
She put down the blasting cap on the floor. "It will... explode if I do, right?" Red licked her lips, lifting a shaking hand towards the top of the mine but yanked it back just short of the detonator wire when her trembling thumb slipped over the safety switch.  
  
He realised Red was growing more anxious and could inadvertently blow them both up if she didn’t calm down, so he snapped his fingers to gain her attention carefully selected his next words. "Don't think about that. Just carefully lift the wire out and put it down on the floor. It's like that game where you remove plastic organs with tweezers without making the sides buzz."  
  
"This is _not _like Operation." Red glowered at him because there was nothing else to glower at except their potential death at her fingers.  
  
Bucky’s eyes locked with hers again, just like they had outside. And though the look only lasted a few moments it was as if a whole conversation had transpired. Red was hesitant, but Bucky had watched her get this far. And it was just this one thing left, just this one thing and they were home-free. Only Red was shaking. She wasn’t a soldier, she was barely an adult, and she was holding both their lives in her hands. But Bucky, somehow, had faith she could do it.  
  
And in the end, faith won out, because sometimes faith was all a person had left when everything else was stripped away by the world.  
  
Red reached for the detonating wire, and after a single swallow and a long breath in, Bucky could breathe naturally again as the wire hit the floor beside the bomb and Red rolled over onto her side, overcome with relief.  
  
"Good," the supersoldier said, nodding, bent forward and resting his hands on his knees as he breathed in and out.  
  
"I think I'm gonna be sick," the girl murmured weakly, looking up at him from the floor.  
  
"No time." He straightened up and carefully picked up the bomb and separated parts which he immediately began stripping down. "Whoever set that bomb up will be waiting for the explosion. Once they realise it hasn't gone off, they'll come back to question why and not in a friendly way. Go get your things. We need to leave now."  
  
Red sighed, gathering up her strength again and standing off the floor on only slightly wobbly legs. She made it two steps up before she heard "take out your switchblade just in case. I doubt they're still here but they could have set up other traps."  
  
"Can you come with..." she turned around in time to see Bucky breezing into the kitchen and disregarding her small-voiced request in favour of whatever he’d found stripping the mine. She slumped against the bannister. "...me?"  
  
  
Not more than two hours later, the pair found themselves at the train station purchasing tickets for somewhere Bucky picked out. Red had not spoken since their little incident at the safehouse and continued to say nothing as Bucky flashed fake IDs in order to purchase their tickets.  
  
It was maybe ten minutes into their journey where Bucky actually took notice of Red’s state, and that was only because he wondered why she hadn’t already buried herself in her book. "You alright?" he asked the brunette staring out of the window with a blank expression.  
  
"It's my fault," she said bluntly.  
  
It took Bucky a few seconds to clue in about what she was blaming herself for. Surely she didn’t mean the mine? How the hell could that have been her fault?  
  
"Do you know how they got inside?" She turned her head away from the window to face him head-on across their train booth.  
  
"No. Hardly matters, they did and we got out alive. It's done," he answered, sitting back and trying to get comfortable for the long journey he was planning for the two. Now they were out of that house, they needed another place to settle. Bucky wasn’t travelling alone anymore, he had to accommodate.  
  
Red’s eyes dropped to the table, body curling in on itself in shame. "It was my window - I left it open before we went out. Someone could have climbed the drainpipe to get in, plant the mine, and get back out. The drain's stable enough."  
  
He squinted at her. "How do you know?"  
  
Her eyes remained looking down. "I almost used it once. A few weeks ago before we agreed to stick together more permanently, I planned to go use the window since I didn't know where the door keys were." She glanced up and then immediately back down with a scowl. "Don't look at me like that. It's not the first time I've climbed out a window and it won't be the last. I'm a good climber."   
  
When he’d looked around the house to collect his things for running, Bucky had swept for any signs of a break-in and there had been none, or at least none he could find, and now Red was suggesting her window and that drain. Perhaps it was her window, perhaps it wasn’t and they simply found a way he didn’t think of. They didn’t know for sure without asking the people who did it, and the only way Bucky wanted to ask was with a gun in his hand and a clear shot to their heads.  
  
"We still don't know how they found us in the first place. The safehouse was off-books and I destroyed the paper files," he said, thinking, shifting in his seat and scratching his neck with a gloved hand. "Maybe someone got lucky, spotted us in the city and followed us." He went over all the times they’d returned and tried to remember which blindspots someone could have picked out.  
  
"Pretty sure that's my fault too," Red declared. "My phone ring any bells? You warned me to be careful with it and I let you watch movies on it online. Someone could've picked up and tracked the signal while I used the internet." She reached into her ripped coat’s pocket and pulled out the item in question, turning it over in her hands. "Could still be doing now…"  
  
That was entirely possible too. Bucky watched the girl grow more and more crushed with the idea that all this was her fault, but even if she had inadvertently been responsible for those two slip-ups, the acts themselves weren’t her fault. She didn’t personally let in the bombers and she didn’t personally broadcast their address to anyone listening carefully enough. But she did have a point about the phone.  
  
He sat up, leaning his arms on the table. "Is there anything on that you desperately need?" he asked.  
  
Red thought, then tapped a few things into her phone before passing it over to him.  
  
"Done?" he double-checked, and as soon as the nod was given, he bent the phone in two in his hands before tossing it out of the train window to be lost in the whipping breeze of Germany’s springtime.  
  
Red stared at him.  
  
Bucky couldn’t read what she was thinking but could guess, relaxing as much as possible in his seat. "I'll buy you a new one," he promised casually.  
  
Red didn’t answer and remained quiet, sitting back and wearing that blank expression again, staring at her hands fidgeting on top of the booth table. It took her a while but eventually, she seemed to remember the backpack next to her, unzipping it and retrieving that book Bucky was sure by now she could read word-for-word without glancing once at the pages and started at the beginning. Again.  
  
Bucky watched her for a long moment and realised how this situation was normal to him, a minor inconvenience that he knew how to handle, but Red had presumably never (or at least he thought she had never) experienced anything like this before. The girl had just disarmed a mine, an _explosive weapon_, and been shuffled out of her temporary home because people were trying to kill the ex-agent, all things Bucky had dealt with multiple times over, but this girl, this child, had not.  
  
In the midst of his self-lecturing, he blurted out. "I'm sorry."  
  
Red didn’t look up but her eyes paused. "Where are we going?" she asked like he hadn’t said a thing.  
  
"Bucharest," he answered.  
  
"That's over a day away," she informed him like he didn’t already know.  
  
"We're stopping off before the border first. I need an ID if they've been in the house," Bucky replied, then asked, "do you need one?"  
  
Red furrowed her brow and opened her mouth to ask why he’d asked that question, then it seemed to hit her, her own ID would have her _name _on it, and her mouth clicked closed, uncomfortable.  
  
"I'll get you one," he said distractedly, making a note to himself for when the train stopped at their destination. He didn’t see the flicker of surprise pass through her features that was quickly squashed underneath a blank mask.  
  
"A new phone and an ID? You're spoiling me, James." Red returned to her reading.  
  
"I warned you," is all he said.  
  
"I'm not leaving you," she replied.


	20. Little

Red was awakened to Bucky shaking her shoulder and telling her this was their stop. She didn’t know when she’d fallen asleep, but when she woke, the sky had grown dark and the station lights were just turning on. Grabbing her bag, the two exited the train, flashed their tickets to the guard, and walked out of the station to grab a cab. Bucky murmured an address to the driver and soon the two were off towards their destination, and Red glanced out the window just in time to spot the words “Vienna Train Station” illuminated on a sign shrinking further and further into the distance.  
  
The sun had completely set by the time the cab pulled up outside… a dance club? Red shot Bucky a questioning look but he said nothing, paying the driver a handful of bills and gesturing for her to step out of the car with him. The cab drove off into the night and Red raised an eyebrow at the neon sign blinking above them, but Bucky wasn’t interested in that, pulling down his cap and walking down the street towards a less lit spot.  
  
Red jogged after him and followed him into an alley that was straight out of a gangster movie just without the drug dealers and armed guards outside suspicious doors. Although there was a door Bucky stopped outside of, banging on it three times, pausing, then two more times.  
  
”Don’t talk unless I tell you to,” Bucky instructed Red over his shoulder seconds before the door opened, cutting off Red’s confused question before it could leave her mouth.  
  
The man who opened the door was tall and lanky, dressed completely in black but smartly in style with a waistcoat printed with purple swirling patterns and high boots, dark hair and matching eyes rimmed with liner. The man squinted at the two figures in front of him before his mouth broke out into a wide, almost manic smile.  
  
”James, perfect timing.” He opened the door wider and leaned in the doorway, grinning at Bucky before taking another glance at the girl stood awkwardly behind him. ”And who is this beautiful creature?” He leaned further out of the doorway to peer at her.  
  
Red could hear the accent, it had started American but the local talk and accent had subtly slipped into it over a long time of exposure to the culture. She supposed it helped him blend in better if the “door in a dank alleyway” wasn’t enough of a secret spot.  
  
”A friend. Don’t even think about it, Jefferson,” Bucky grunted in warning at him.  
  
Jefferson, as the man was apparently named, raised a thin eyebrow and leaned back. ”A friend? I didn’t know you had friends anymore, just contacts.” He chuckled and as suddenly as he appeared he disappeared inside. “Come on,” he called over his shoulder, retreating further into the workshop.  
  
Bucky glanced back at Red, nodding once, before guiding them both inside and deadbolting the door behind them. Bucky stuck closer than he usually would to Red as they walked, a protective presence at her side as they walked into the lanky man’s workshop. It was aflutter with papers and busy with mechanical projects that Red couldn’t even begin to try and name, many looking like they jumped out of one of her storybooks. She tried not to get dizzy as they approached the one clean workbench Jefferson sat at, a large computer plugged into various other devices up and running.  
  
“Your call said you needed new papers.” Jefferson cracked his knuckles and neck in turn.  
  
”One for me, one for her,” Bucky confirmed.  
  
J plucked a phone off the desk and slinked over to Red. ”I already have your picture, James. Smile,” he requested and Red smiled on command. The shutter noise sounded and Jefferson checked the image. “Like a frightened rabbit,” he remarked as he returned to his desk and uploaded the photo.  
  
”How long is this going to be?”  
  
”Patience, patience. I’m creating completely new people with backstories written specially for you.” In truth, he was only adding finishing details to two of the many, many backlogged people he’d already created but they didn’t need to know the full extent of his genius. “If you want them to pass even military inspection I need to concentrate.” Jefferson began typing, waving a shushing gesture without looking away from the screen as somewhere in the room one of the numerous mystery machines started up.  
  
Red could tell Bucky didn’t enjoy any part of this, looking on-edge and tired as his eyes wandered the room. He sometimes wondered why he ever chose to memorise Jefferson’s number, then he remembered it made things like this a lot easier and he just grit his teeth to bear it. He had quite a few memories in the taller man’s workshops he’d rather not recall, choosing to just ignore the feeling that crawled down his back whenever Jefferson put on his harmless persona in front of Red.  
  
It was strange being on the other side of that for once, Red thought, feeling kind of mellow now the adrenaline had worn off and she’d had a good nap. She felt kind of bad for him, seeing him all stiff and awkward when she didn’t know what was wrong. It basically undid all the effort she’d put into helping him relax and calm down. Hopefully, he didn’t stay that way when they left this mad associate of his.  
  
How the hell did these guys meet, anyway? Jefferson seemed a far stretch from any of the contacts she expected Bucky to know. But she shouldn’t really be making judgements on Bucky’s social circle considering her own.  
  
Jefferson cracking his knuckles again made her realise she was staring at Bucky. He hadn’t noticed, eyes still flicking around the room. She looked to the man glancing between them and squinting like he was trying to figure something out, but he didn’t tell them what he either found or didn’t found. Instead, he asked, “The last step would be your names. Do you have any suggestions or would you like me to pick?”  
  
Bucky grunted unhappily as he recalled the last time the younger man had picked out a name for him. Apparently “Ben Dover” was not as funny to him as it had been to Jefferson.  
  
Bucky looked to the brunette. ”You can’t be named “Red” if we’re trying to blend in,” he told her.  
  
”Red? Lovely name. Suits you,” Jefferson said, smirking as if Bucky gave him ammunition for something.  
  
Red ignored him and thought on it. ”Doll? Or Dolly, maybe?” she suggested. After Bucky had called her doll that once, maybe that would be easier to remember in public.  
  
Jefferson hummed and typed. ”Last name? And am I making you two related?”  
  
”Brother and sister,” Bucky told him.  
  
Jefferson snorted quietly. ”Bit of a generation gap between you,” he mumbled with a smirk.  
  
”Tucker,” Red suggested, spying the name on a post-it above his computer.  
  
”Dolly Tucker and…”  
  
Bucky plucked a name out of thin air. ”Lance.”  
  
”Dolly and Lance Tucker. T-U-C-K-E-R.” J typed out on the computer and a moment later the pages were printing. A little fiddling with the passport books and some overtly flamboyant gestures which to Red reminded her of a magician, Jefferson was handing the two their new passports before sweeping up two drivers licences and giving those up as well. “And done. You were both born and raised in Manhattan, middle-class, James is travelling for business as a sales manager and Red is a teaching assistant following her big brother as she studies abroad.” He smiled brilliantly at his own creations.  
  
”Thank you,” Bucky responded gratefully but careful not to sound too excited at the same time Red blinked as she tried to remember her story.  
  
”You’re very welcome, James.” Jefferson grinned before turning his attention to Red. He stared at her, waiting for something, and when Red only continued to look confusedly between him and Bucky like she was missing an inside joke of some kind and started to inwardly squirm, Jefferson cupped his ear with a hand while leaning closer and it clicked.  
  
”Thank you?” It was more questioning than sincere.  
  
”You’re very welcome too, Little Red.” He grinned widely.  
  
Red couldn’t tell if that was intentional or if she was just being called “little” because she was shorter than both men. Not fair. She wasn’t small by any means but Bucky was a big guy, so was this Jefferson, just less muscle and bulk.  
  
”Fee.” Bucky pulled out a stack of bills from his coat and tossed them onto the desk beside his forger’s computer.  
  
”I did do two this time…” Jefferson hummed a long note, trying and failing to play coy.  
  
Bucky rolled his eyes, that wasn’t something he didn’t expect to hear, and a stack of equal size landed next to the first one a moment later.  
  
”Fantastic.”  
  
”Let’s go,” Bucky said to Red who nodded and headed for the door at a pace faster than casual walking.  
  
Bucky moved to join her before Jefferson caught him by the crook of his arm and he tensed up. ”Red isn’t her real name, is it? Do you know who she is?” Jefferson whispered conspiratorially. Bucky shouldn’t be surprised, the forger noticed more than most. ”I could look into her if you wanted,” the younger man continued at the lack of response, the supersoldier’s silence telling him all he needed to know.  
  
Bucky glanced over to Red waiting patiently by the door, looking at a poster for a metal band Bucky didn’t recognise on the wall beside the door. ”It’s fine,” he decided, shrugging out of Jefferson’s hold.  
  
”If you change your mind, call. I have her picture now.” J reminded him, regarding Red up and down a few times before leaning closer to his ear. “She trusts you. A lot. So if you care about her, try not to break her. Not everyone is cut out for this life.”  
  
As if Bucky didn’t know that and think about that every time he looked at the fragile little girl. ”Understood.”  
  
Jefferson finally allowed Bucky to move without pulling him back and called out ”don’t be strangers!” as they got to the door, then paused. “Or, well, do, I suppose.” He chuckled warmly as the two disappeared outside.  
  
In the privacy of the dirty alley, Bucky pocketed their passports and IDs. ”Thank you for keeping quiet,” he said to Red.  
  
”Quiet is normal.” She shrugged, then glanced at the door behind them warily. ”Should I be concerned about him?”  
  
Bucky started leading her out of the alley. ”His loyalties change to suit himself but I saved his life more than once so I get special consideration. You, however, he wouldn’t give the same courtesy on your own,” he explained. “He’s not just a forger, lets put it that way. He would have snatched you up and made a meal of you if I’d let him.”  
  
Red made a face. ”No thanks. Cannibalism isn’t my thing.”  
  
Bucky snorted with an eye roll. ”Let’s go.”  
  
Catching a cab back to the station and ignoring the staff who gave them odd looks as they recognised two returning passengers, the two hopped on the next train heading for Bucharest. It was a busy train and the only seats available were two beside each other beside a window. A single look between them settled the debate and Red got the window seat, falling asleep maybe ten minutes later.  
  
She woke up to sun streaming on her eyes and shied away from the light, head bumping into Bucky’s shoulder on accident but it woke her up. She shook her head and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, glancing at Bucky and realising that he looked exactly the same as when she closed them over five hours ago. She didn’t mention it as she got up to use the bathroom (public transport was so gross) and sat back down wiping her hands on her jeans because fuck touching anything she could avoid in that toilet.  
  
Bucky slid a hot chicken sandwich in front of her and told her they were a good few hours away from their destination.  
  
”Do you ever sleep?” she asked softly, unwrapping the sandwich.  
  
The soldier didn’t respond, nor did he have any food to speak of in front of him. Red hoped that was because he ate while she dozed. “I’ll keep watch if you want,” she offered, biting into the sandwich and only just realising how hungry she actually was, resisting a moan subject of the hot food in her mouth.  
  
Bucky looked indecisive so Red didn’t push it, but soon after she threw the empty wrapper into her backpack, she noticed Bucky’s head angled to the side away from her and the brim of his hat pulled down over his eyes. She retrieved her book and opened it up, spending the rest of the journey reading and occasionally glancing out of the window to the grey sky above. Forecast prediction: rain, because she was feeling okay for once and the weather definitely couldn’t be having that.  
  
She almost missed it when she’d by chance glanced out of the window and saw the sign for “Bucharest” coming up. She marked the page in her book and turned to Bucky who was definitely asleep by now and his head had at some point moved to the opposite side and had been gently resting on her shoulder for the last few stops. She didn’t mind. It was nice to see him have some peace, even if she now had to cut it short so they didn’t miss their stop.  
  
”James?” she spoke softly trying not to startle him, but it appeared it was too soft to even make him stir. “James?” she asked a little firmer when he didn’t respond. Still nothing. They were pulling up outside the station. “James, we’re here.” She made the mistake of lightly shaking his shoulder. “Ja-”  
  
She flinched back when her wrist was abruptly caught in a vice grip and she was staring into cold blue eyes. He was glaring at her, eyes much darker than she remembered, calculating and assessing her as if she were a threat. The pain in her wrist registered but she didn’t acknowledge it further than its familiarity to her healed neck bruises, slumping in her seat, completely relaxed and unchallenging.  
  
Her travel buddy who did not look so ‘buddy‘ right at that moment blinked slowly, and she saw the familiar lack of threat pass through his features before his eyes softened and flicked to her trapped wrist. He stared at it for a long time like he didn’t even recognise his own hand gripping her threateningly.  
  
“We’ve arrived,” Red told him once the train stopped.  
  
Bucky glanced out of the window to check the station sign, his grasp removing itself finger by finger until her limb was free. ”Oh,” he said quietly as Red’s hand dropped into her lap, feeling an apology stuck in his throat.  
  
Red didn’t need the apology, sliding the strap of her backpack onto her shoulder without another word about it. ”Come on. I’m sure you’re starving."


	21. Floor

”What’s the plan?” Red asked once they were seated at a table close to the window and away from other guests that could overhear. The cafe itself was small and quiet but lively enough not to assume they were closing, and so Bucky and Red had stepped in and sat down with the menus.  
  
”I know a few safe apartment buildings here. Not safehouses, so we’ll have to be more careful but they should be a good cover. There’ll be less space than the house.”  
  
The places Bucky knew in Bucharest were hidden in plain sight and quiet, and though a part of his mind scolded him for not trying to find somewhere nicer or bigger than where he knew for Red’s sake, the rational part of his mind reminded him he’d never planned to come here with company and scouting other places would take too long. And when he weighed the pros and cons of somewhere like Bucharest, somewhere without much outside interference and not an area HYDRA really ever bothered with, they could endure less comfort for a while, or at least until Bucky could secure them somewhere better.  
  
”At least you won’t have to be constantly chopping logs all day for a giant fireplace,” Red reasoned with a small smile.  
  
It had been a good job Bucky had cut all those logs, it made spreading the fire he started inside before they left easier. The house would be completely destroyed by now, leaving no evidence behind for anyone to use to track them. He’d casually left that part out of his conversations with Red.  
  
”We should start using the ID names,” Bucky pulled out Red’s personalised ID with that awkward photo that did not capture how beautiful her real smile looked in Bucky’s opinion, sliding it across to her.  
  
”Yes, Lance.” She pocketed the card sounding only a tiny teeny bit sarcastic.  
  
”Sure thing, Dolly,” he responded easily, flipping the menu over.  
  
Red made a face. ”Just Doll. It’s easier.”  
  
”Whatever you say, Doll,” he responded in that same easy way.  
  
Even though she knew he was just calling her that because of her new identity (She had a new identity. She was still getting over that. Not everyone was a supersoldier who used to be a spy.) no one had ever bothered to give Red a nickname before. It shouldn’t really, but it made her feel warm. Content. Happy?  
  
A waitress approached their table speaking in Romanian to ask for their orders. Red attempted some almost-good pronunciation of what the menu translated was sausage and eggs and Bucky quickly took over, ordering her and his own dinner perfectly fluently with the accent to match. The petite woman scribbled down on the notepad and asked for drink orders. The rest of the conversation Red couldn’t begin to try and understand, Romanian being almost nothing like German, but the sweet smile Bucky offered the woman and her cute little giggle made her eyes narrow, watching the woman swaying her curvy hips a little as she left to fill their order.  
  
Pushing aside the odd sensation she didn’t recognise itching the back of her mind, she asked him ”how many languages do you speak?” since it hadn’t been mentioned in the articles she’d read.  
  
”Fluently; English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, Latin, and Japanese. I’m passable in a few others, including Romanian lucky for us.”  
  
She bit her tongue to stop the biting comment she had on his “luck” with the waitress. ”Yeah. For me, its English and German. But I can order a pizza in French,” she admitted and smiled both timidly and proudly.  
  
”You said you grew up in a bilingual house,” Bucky remembered.  
  
”Yeah. Dad’s from Berlin and Mom’s from Queens.”  
  
He huffed. ”Queens.”  
  
She huffed back. ”Brooklyn.”  
  
They shared a smile.  
  
The waitress returned with two coffee cups and a fresh pot to fill them both up. Neither spoke while she poured and quickly disappeared but not before giving Bucky a quick coy look which had Bucky nodding politely and Red rolling her eyes.  
  
It wasn’t long before food followed and Red dove in like a starving woman. ”What about you? Where’s your family from?” Red asked before she shovelled a mouthful past her lips.  
  
Bucky started cutting at his bacon rashers. ”I don’t remember much about them.” he told her honestly. Then. pausing with a forkful halfway to his mouth, his free hand curled into a fist and his eyes narrowed as he stared into the distance. Red could see the mental struggle, a memory he was rushing to grab before it could scamper away like a deer from a lion. Bucky put down his fork and retrieved his notebook from his bag and opened it straight to a select entry. What Red found interesting was how quickly he located the needed page.  
  
He started reading the notes and talking, “From what I remember, when I was born, me, ma, and pa lived in Shelbyville and at age ten moved close to Brooklyn. They sent me to George Washington High School. I don’t remember how but I know they died when I was young. Ten, I guessed.” He glared at the lacking notes as if more would appear just by wishing.  
  
Red lost her appetite momentarily, fork resting limply in her grasp. ”Sorry,” she said because it was the only thing she could say.  
  
”No. Remembering helps, even when it’s painful.” He closed the notebook and it was out of sight the next second.  
  
”Forgetting the pain is convenient, remembering it is agonising, but recovering the truth is more often than not worth the suffering that accompanies it." Red recalled the quote from a book she’d read the year previous, but she couldn’t identify which one from the shelves upon shelves she’d buried herself in during those months.  
  
Bucky hummed, picking up his fork and mumbling ”There’s that Wise Woman again” gently to himself.  
  
Realising there was no point harking the subject, she changed it. ”Do you remember much about school?”  
  
Bucky went on to tell he remembered being a fairly good academic, and then how he met Steve, or parts of it anyway, how the skinny punk was being picked on by these bigger guys that stole his lunch money and trapped him in a locker. Not surprising given their lockers were tiny and Steve could still fit inside and have room for his easel. Bucky had stepped in as the heroic badass (Red’s words, not his) and retrieved the money and Steve sending the bullies away with their tails between their legs. The young punk had been grateful and even bought Bucky lunch, and from then on Bucky had been delegated Steve’s Person Ass-Saver (Bucky’s words that time) until Steve moved into another school… Art School, Bucky was sure.  
But even when he remembered all these things, he still didn’t feel like he connected with them. It was like he was a bystander to these memories, just standing on the sidelines as someone else lived and shared their experiences with him. He knew he wasn’t the same man he was nor would he ever be again, and deep inside he could feel some part of him that longed to be that person he saw in his memories, to be someone, not just… this.  
  
A shell. An echo. A _thing_.  
  
It must have registered in his expression because the feeling of a gentle weight tickling the back of his hand made his eyes snap down to the delicate fingers brushing his leather-covered knuckles. But as soon as his eyes tracked onto them, they curled back under the small palm laid on the table beside his own hand. The hand was tiny compared to his, a glaring reminder of just how more powerful he was than normal people. He followed the hand up the sleeve of the blue coat to the rip in the shoulder and then the girl sat across the table watching him with soft doe-eyes.  
  
He cleared his throat, stuffing food into his mouth as an excuse to stop talking. If Red realised his intention she said nothing about it, and he equally ignored how her hand remained where it was on the table beside his. ”Where did- where did you go to school?” He chewed quickly.  
  
Red hesitated before talking, pulling her hand back. ”Willow Avenue High. Manhattan. Never rescued anyone from a locker, though. The most interesting thing to happen there was graduation and even that was a bust.” She snorted softly.  
  
”Not a lot of good memories?”  
  
She shrugged, looking away. ”Some. I mean the classes were cool, I’m alright when it comes to my smarts, but everything else was…” She lost herself in thought, eyes squinting at nothing in the middle distance for a few seconds. She suddenly blinked and returned to the present. “English has always been my best subject, and yes, I was always a bookworm before you say it. When I was younger, I really wanted to be a crime detective, I loved Sherlock novels. I also wanted to be a fiction writer for a while after reading so many fantasy stories.”  
  
”And now?”  
  
”Hm?”  
  
Bucky finished his food, dropping his cutlery. ”You said “used to”. What do you want to be now?” He wiped his hands and mouth with the napkin beside him.  
  
Red looked down and twirled her fork on the plate, swirling the remaining eggs around like a cyclone.  
  
_Cyclone. Coney Island. Bright lights and cotton candy. “It’ll be fun, don’t be a baby!”. Steve threw up._  
  
”Not a waste of space.” Red’s admission made him forget to write down the memory that flooded in, snapping out of the caramel scented images at her voice. “Is that an option?” She looked up from her plate with a chuckle and half-smile. Bucky was still trying to register what she said first when her fork clattered against the porcelain plate. “I’m done.”  
  
Bucky removed his wallet, counting out and leaving the correct change on the table with only a little argument from Red about her own share. He won with a glare (definitely not cheating) before looking over at Red with a head tilt. ”Bathroom, buy a water bottle, then we’re back on the train. Doll.”  
  
  
The rest of the trip wasn’t nearly as exciting. Really the only interesting thing about it was getting off the train and flashing their ID cards and passports to the station and border managers which even though Red could swear while being stared down by a polygraph that she trusted Bucky, the image of that Jefferson guy and Bucky’s warning about quote-unquote ‘making a meal of her’ put her a little on edge. She needn’t have worried as they passed without problem although Red could have sworn the border manager gave Bucky a double-take. But then again, wearing a large jacket, gloves, and a baseball cap in early summer would probably get anyone specifically looking for “suspicious personnel”s attention. Regardless, they slipped past the guards and into the city, standing on the sidewalk beside the station.  
  
”Feels like back in Berlin,” Red mumbled with a sense of deja-vu.  
  
”First place we can check is twenty minutes away,” Bucky responded, already back in ‘super-spy’ mode and wandering down the street before he’d finished his sentence.  
  
Red tried not to sigh and followed him dutifully.  
  
It took them three buildings to find somewhere they could stay comfortably. The first building had no rooms available and the seconds’ weren’t big enough for the two of them or were too many floors apart when they tried for separate apartments or were just uninhabitable.  
  
In the end, the third building had one appropriate apartment which, as Bucky had warned her, was exactly like the apartment where they met with a single bedroom, a bathroom, and then an open attached living area and kitchen, all empty of course aside from the built-in essentials like a washing machine and cupboard space, and a tiny tattered couch pushed to the corner. All it took was a single look to each other and it was decided.  
  
  
After a quick apartment sweep and dust, both began to unpack in their new home for now. It was around this time when both of them were in the living room of the apartment, dark outside, when the question of sleeping arrangements popped up.  
  
”There’s no bed,” Red said tentatively while she finished unpacking. She didn’t want to seem like she was complaining, after all, Bucky had paid for all this (much to her chagrin and gentle protests silenced once again by a glare), but the point was unavoidable.  
  
”There’s a couch.” Bucky pushed his clothes into a nearby cupboard in the kitchen as temporary storage and making a list of essentials to buy in his head.  
  
”It won’t fit us both,” she pointed out. The worn-out thing looked like it would barely support their weight if any of them were to attempt to sit on it.  
  
”You take it,” Bucky replied, closing the cupboard and pouring himself a drink.  
  
”And you’ll do what? Sleep on the floor?” Red asked as a joke but her face fell flat once she realised that was exactly what Bucky had in mind. “James, no.”  
  
”Red, I’ve stayed in worse places. By now, just having a roof over my head is a welcome comfort.” he told her, taking a sip from the mug that he’d found and thoroughly sterilised beforehand. He was prepared for the argument and already had that ‘cut-off glare’ ready when Red did something he hadn’t expected. She’d huffed, walked into the middle of the living space, and just laid down on the floor using her backpack as a pillow. From then, she curled up and didn’t move again. “Red, get off the floor,” Bucky said.  
  
”Goodnight, James,” she replied, settling down.  
  
”Red,” Bucky called. No reply. “_Red_,” he said a little harder, and though he saw her curl up a little more, she refused to move from her spot. Sighing in defeat and gulping the rest of his drink down, he grabbed his backpack off the kitchen counter and walked up to where she was laying before taking a few steps to the side and lying down on the floor a few metres from her.  
  
Curling up, he closed his eyes tight and tried to forget the world. “Goodnight, Doll."


	22. Woodsman

Red couldn’t tell exactly what woke her up early the next morning, but all she knew was that when she turned over onto her other side and saw a wide awake Bucky staring blankly up at the ceiling, lying straight as a soldier as his hands curled into fists and with a cold sweat on his brow, she could hazard a guess.  
  
Also, that was a fucking creepy sight to wake up to.  
  
”James,” she said his name, voice cracking as it usually would with the first words of the day. He looked wound up and tense, a rubber band one tug away from snapping but refusing to be pushed over that edge, and he only blinked in response to her indirectly telling him she was awake. “James, are you okay?” She sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and looking down at him.  
  
He was breathing in and out slowly through his nose, jaw completely stiff. But then he turned his head just a little, and though his lips parted, he said nothing.  
  
Her eyes flicked between him and the kitchen area. “Do you want a drink?” she asked gently, and if she wasn’t looking as closely as she had been, she would have missed the tiny nod he managed to give her.  
  
She was in and out of the kitchen with a mug of cold water in seconds. She held out the cup but sensing his not-very-movable state moved the cup to his curled fist, reaching out with a free hand to try and loosen his fingers enough to grab the cup. It worked, kind of, and with some effort since he was a supersoldier and she wasn’t, she got his fingers wrapped around the mug safely enough to let go.  
  
She sat quietly by his side, cross-legged and watching as whatever uncomfortable high he’d gotten himself trapped in released his body bit by bit, enough he could lean up and bring the mug of water to his lips, taking big gulps and emptying it. Red had it filled and returned to his hand in less than ten seconds.  
  
He wet his lips and looked up at her. “Talk…” he voiced his first word of the morning.  
  
”What?”  
  
”Just… talk to me. Please.”  
  
”What do you want me to talk about?” Red asked.  
  
”Anything.” he said, returning his gaze to the ceiling. “It worked last time,” he admitted, much quieter.  
  
Red tried to think of anything to talk about, looking around the room for inspiration, ready to spout off a list of things she could see on the kitchen counter before she spotted her backpack.  
  
Bucky heard her shuffling around, eyes locked on the ceiling, before she settled back beside him and cleared her throat before speaking.  
  
_”Once upon a time, there was a sweet little girl who lived in a village near the woods. No one was sure of her real name, but the people of the village always called her Little Red Riding Hood for whenever you saw her, she without fail wore a red riding cloak. It had been hand-sewed by her mother as a 10th birthday gift. It was her most prized possession.”_  
  
She was reading to him to calm him down. She was reading him the book she’d read a thousand and one times to help him. He instantly started to relax more.  
  
_“One morning, Little Red Riding Hood’s mother asked her daughter if she could go to visit her sick grandma in the woods and take her a basket of food. The daughter happily agreed as she hadn’t seen her grandma in a fair time, and let the mother fill her little basket with sweet treats and cakes for the journey.  
  
”Don’t forget there are dangerous animals in the woods,” her mother warned her as she always did, and placed a sharp butterknife amidst the food just in case.”_  
  
Bucky furrowed his brow. That was a detail he’d apparently forgotten.  
  
_” ”Yes, mother, I will be careful,” the daughter said and skipped out of the house on her merry way to the woods and grandma’s house,” _Red continued to read softly.  
  
Bucky could have told her to stop then, but her voice was more soothing than he’d expected, and he had no urge to tell her to stop when they were just getting to the interesting bit.  
  
_”Red Riding Hood skipped merrily down the path leading to grandma’s house humming a gentle tune. In the distance, she could hear the sound of chopping logs and immediately knew it was the Woodcutter. Sure enough, as she passed through a clearing, there was by his stump chopping logs with a big shiny axe.  
  
”Hello father!” she called out to him excitedly, pausing his arms mid-swing as he looked over.  
  
”Hello dear. And where are you off to today?” he asked with a kind smile, wiping his brow and setting his axe down carefully.  
  
”Grandma’s house with food. She’s sick,” she told him.  
  
”Oh,” he replied, eyes flicking between her and the direction she came from. “Will you be long?”  
  
”I’ll be back by sunset, as always,” she shook her head replying happily and skipping off with a wave, further into the woods, leaving the Woodsman to pick up his axe and head home.  
  
Red Riding Hood continued to skip down the path past the flowers and the trees until she reached her grandma’s cottage. She bounded up to the door, standing on her tiptoes and knocking loudly. “Grandma! Are you home,” but she paused when no reply came. Red Riding Hood was confused and was about to knock again when a small piece of paper fluttered down from a higher place on the door to her feet. She picked up the note, reading **“Out until 7. Leave any deliveries in the garden, please”**. Red Riding Hood grew more confused, her mother had said Grandma was sick, so why was she not home resting?  
  
Red Riding Hood decided that she should turn back if Grandma wasn’t going to be home for a few hours and headed back the way she came towards her village, hopping through the woods without a care in the world. **At least now she could eat all the treats herself,** she thought, giggling.”_  
  
Bucky had a foreboding feeling creeping up his spine. And where was the wolf in all of this?  
  
Red continued to read, _”Red Riding Hood returned home humming a light tune with a smile on her face. She waved to her neighbours and strolled up the garden path and into her house.  
  
Then she screamed and dropped the basket in her hands.  
  
There on the floor was the body of her mother, torn up and bleeding out onto the wooden floorboards. The delicate summer dress she'd worn that day was ripped and shredded, stained with the colour of crimson clashing against the original baby blue material. Worst of all, her face a bloodied mess and her body a little more than a pile of mangled limbs resembling a broken visage of the mother Red saw only a few hours ago.  
  
She wasn’t moving, but the man standing above her holding a bloody axe was, staring down at the body and panting heavily with grit teeth. The man suddenly looked up at Red Riding Hood, and she had never feared her own father in her 13 years of life than right at that moment, dread filling her stomach as she realised what had happened, tears brimming at her eyes.  
  
”A wolf,” her father growled out. “It was a wolf that took your mother. I chased it off but I was too late to save her,” he continued, dropping the axe to the floor and hurrying out through the door into the woods to call for the police.  
  
The police came. They took statements from the Woodsman, the surrounding neighbours and Red herself who could barely speak through her sobs. “A wolf wandered out from the woods and attacked the nearest house, which unfortunately had been yours”. Or so that’s what the police said.  
  
But Little Red Riding Hood knew the truth. It hadn’t been a wolf - The biggest animal that lived in those woods were Badgers and they didn’t leave their home unless provoked, and even so, they hardly had the power to kill a fully grown woman. No.  
  
She knew. The Woodsman killed her mother.  
  
But she was scared to tell people the truth. Who would believe her? What proof did she have? Why would the Woodsman kill the wife he loved so much? So she stayed silent. But every year when visiting her mothers grave, clutching her basket of flowers and treats and kneeling down beside her resting place, she vowed she would make her father pay. The sweet little girl in the small red cape was sweet and little no longer. Her sweetness had been stolen away as easily as the treats in her basket, robbed by the crooked woods that surrounded her and the people she would once call family.  
  
She just had to wait for the right moment to take down the Big Bad Wolf.”_  
  
Red looked up from the book. _”End Prologue.”_  
  
Bucky was silent for a long blink as it all sunk in. ”That’s not how I remember that story going.”  
  
Red smiled. ”There are different versions. This one is my favourite. Or at least my favourite of the ones I own.”  
  
”How many versions have you read?” Bucky pushed himself up on one elbow, mug now half-full.  
  
Red looked up as she tried to remember. ”No idea. A lot? Imagine a shelf.” She widened her arms to give him an idea of the size before her finger snapped and she looked back down at him. “Oh, and I read one once where Red Riding Hood ran away from home because of some bullshit I don’t remember and ran straight into Captain Hook from Peter Pan.”  
  
Bucky stared blankly at her and she nodded excitedly. “Yeah, and then he asked her to join his crew which she did on a whim because she was running and had nowhere else to go and stuff and it turns out in the end that Red Riding Hood when she’s older is actually Red-Handed Jill.”  
  
Bucky continued to stare blankly, one eyebrow slowly raising.  
  
“Of course running with pirates trying to catch a boy that will never grow up, who was described to be literally an actual _demon _in the story, isn’t too great. There’s injuries, scurvy, crewmate romances, a bunch of complex magical creature lore, and death for the most part.” She circled her hand in a motion of ‘etc, etc’.  
  
”Uh-huh,” he said dumbly with a smile that had appeared somewhere between her eyes lighting up like a Christmas tree and “scurvy”.  
  
”Its one of my favourites because it doesn’t paint the main heroine in a helpless light for practically all the book like some books can do. And its interesting really, because what I think all Red did there was trade one wolf for another when she ran away, but at least this one had a sense of humour and a kinder heart.” She smiled then paused. “And also didn’t eat her. That’s important. Like I said, cannibalism is not my thing.” She shook her head in disgust and looked down at the cover of her book, the black wolf design glinting in the morning sun that peeked through the uncovered window.  
  
”One wolf for another. Sounds familiar.” Bucky rolled over and pushed himself up to a sitting position in time with Red’s stomach rumbling softly. ”Hungry?” he glanced down and chuckled.  
  
She nodded. ”Little bit.”  
  
Bucky tilted his head, finishing his water before standing up, tension and aftershocks disappearing as if they were never even there. ”Let’s go out. We can get a few things to fill out the place like food and cutlery.”  
  
_And other things like blankets and pillows so we don’t have to lie uncomfortably on the floor at night because we’re both equally stubborn, _Red mentally snorted. “Sounds great.”  
  
  
Bucky was thankful this place at least had a working boiler or they may not have even survived the week. Well, Bucky probably would have, but he wasn’t so sure about Red, even with all the pillows and blankets they bought together (because Red was growing more resistant to his warning glare, or at least that’s what he let her think) she was currently buried in on the floor, still refusing to take the sofa. She’d taken to lying down like a stubborn child in the middle of the floor surrounded by pillows and blankets like a little bird in a feathered nest.  
  
Bucky was only still awake because he was stalling. After this morning, he’d been anxious to fall asleep again. Red shouldn’t have to deal with that. No one should. But she put up with it anyway and even helped him out when he asked.  
  
He shook it off and cleaned up in the kitchen. They’d stocked up on food, some knives and forks as necessary and plastic bowls and plates to make after-dinner clean-up easier, as well as a few other things like foldable boxes for clothes storage.  
  
Bucky picked up her blue coat off where it hung on a drawer handle, intending to lay it over her for extra warmth before his eye caught sight of that rip in the sleeve. He hummed, tongue rolling against the inside of his cheek as his eyes landed on the nearby kitchen drawer. A small tug and it opened to reveal a tin holding a sewing kit freshly bought today, and nodding to himself he grabbed it. He went to sit down in the kitchen, but after deciding the sofa was closer to her, he shifted and sat very carefully on the arm, surprised when it didn’t just snap off.  
  
Settling the old ripped coat in his lap, he got to work. The supersoldier pricked himself a few times trying to thread the needle, quietly swearing out of worry of waking the sleeping girl, but after a few creative curses and a lot of remembering his breathing exercises, he finally managed to get the thread through the eye and start on the sleeve.


	23. Scissors

By the next morning, Bucky had compiled a list of furniture they should buy if they were to turn this apartment into an actual living space and to possibly bring some normalcy back to their routines. It was a step he’d always tried to take for himself, to live like a normal person whenever he could manage it because it always helped him to feel more human than when he slept on the street and the fear crept in.  
  
Of course, this reminder of living on his own and the fact that the apartment was almost a mirror image of the last one he inhabited, made him momentarily forget he had a roommate now and walked straight into the bathroom before freezing as he came face-to-face with the image of Red intensely staring into the cabinet mirror with a pair of scissors in her hand.  
  
His first instinct was to check she wasn’t doing anything she shouldn’t with them, and when he was sure she was fine, his eyes flicked back up to her staring blankly back at him rather than her own reflection.  
  
There was a long stretch of silence where they just stared at each other in a frozen moment.  
  
“What are you doing?” Bucky asked eventually, keeping his tone neutral.  
  
”Cutting my hair,” Red answered in the same manner. Bucky realised it was still wet from a shower, brushed straight. “What are you doing?” she asked.  
  
”Needed to use the bathroom,” he replied.  
  
”Oh,” she said. Silence again. Red flipped the scissors to hold the blades instead of the handle. “Well, you should probably go first. This might take a while.” She said, moving towards the door he was still standing in. “Especially considering I’ve never cut my hair myself before,” she mumbled the last part, itching behind her ear.  
  
”Why are you cutting it?” Bucky asked, blocking her exit as she came to a stop in front of him.  
  
”Because it’s getting too long and in the way.”  
  
”I’m sure there’s a barber place around.”  
  
”Its’s fine.” She shook her head, refusing to make a big deal out of it. “I’ll clear out of your way. Plus if it looks messy I can just tie it up. Harder to tell that way.” Bucky hadn’t really seen her with her hair up, Red preferring it to be loose and wavy as it naturally was. ”Unless you wanted to, um…” She gestured with the scissors towards her head, tentatively, not looking at him. “…assist? With the whole…”  
  
Bucky paused to consider.  
  
  
”Are you sure you wanna do this?” he asked once they’d found a stool in the corner of the bathroom for Red to sit on while Bucky held the scissors in his right hand.  
  
”Its’s just a haircut, James. It will grow back.”  
  
”Let me rephrase, are you sure you want _me _to do this?”  
  
Red had had the thought that Bucky wouldn’t really enjoy this, she hadn’t even expected him to say yes in the first place, in fact. But if he was willing to even consider it, she would give him a little nudge in the right direction to try and gain his confidence back. ”You know blades better than I do and I trust you more than myself with those things. Plus, do you see anyone else around?” she asked. Bucky remained silent. She sighed and held her hand open over her shoulder. “If you don’t wanna do it, that’s fine. Pass me back the scissors.”  
  
”No, I can- I can do it.” Bucky insisted, looking at her hair brushed straight and kept that way with the weight of the water. His metal fist clenched and unclenched laying dormant at his side. “And for the record, I’m better at using a rifle than a knife,” he responded to her little quip about knives, but he hadn’t expected her to snort and start giggling a few seconds later. “What?”  
  
”Sorry, I just imagined you trying to use a bayonet rifle to cut my hair. Like, holding the whole thing and not just the knife at the end.” She made a crude gesture with her hands, mimicking a heavy bayonet rifle trying haphazardly to cut someone’s hair before snorting again and covering her mouth with a hand, eyes shifting up to look at him through the medicine cabinet mirror.  
  
Bucky enjoyed the way they lit up when she giggled like that. He would ignore the comment he had about how that was a gross misuse of army equipment just so he could savour it a moment longer.  
  
Eventually Red calmed herself enough to nod at Bucky. “Alright, alright. If this is too complicated for you, I could lend you my pocketknife instead if it would make you more comfortable.”  
  
”Its a haircut, not flying a car,” he responded, not wanting to seem nearly as awkward as he felt about this.  
  
Red rolled her eyes. “Well? What are you waiting for then?”  
  
That was the million-dollar question. He knew he was stalling. This was strange enough without considering the actual ramifications of the situation in its entirety. The Winter Soldier cutting someone’s hair with a pair of scissors. Well, he’s done worse things with scissors over the years, he reasoned.  
  
A violent image crept into his mind, unbidden. The Winter Soldier smiled at him in the mirror, grabbed Red by her hair and wrenched her head back, the cold blades sliding across her throat in an easy movement and staining her outfit with crimson.  
  
He shook the image from his mind instantly. That wasn’t what he was going to do. He wasn’t that man anymore.  
  
Red seemed to notice the trepidation. “I trust you, James. I promise you can do it.”  
  
”You shouldn’t trust me,” he mumbled.  
  
”Tough shit, I do,” she replied with so much confidence it shocked him still for a second.  
  
Their eyes met in the mirror, and hers weren’t shrouded by a cloud of anxiety this time. It filled him with confidence, and he finally picked up a section of her hair between two fingers and tried not to call her out on the tiny flinch she gave when his fingers brushed her shoulders. The scissors severed the strands with a clean _snip _and a tiny clump of her brunette hair fell to the floor of the bathroom. Bucky reminded himself to add “sweeping brush” to his shopping list.  
  
The same thing happened for the next two sections. He would pick the hair up, she would flinch but try to smother it, and he would cut it as straight as the others. By the fourth time and her fourth flinch, he couldn’t hold back the subject.  
  
”You keep flinching,” he said without meaning to.  
  
He saw Red wince but only because he was staring at her reflection so intensely. ”Sorry. Its been a while.”  
  
”This was your idea.”  
  
”I know,” she said and looked like she regretted the decision already. “It was a bad idea for me to ask you to get involved. I can finish it.” She reached back an open hand for the scissors.  
  
”Red.”  
  
”Seriously. I’m sure it’s not too hard to get straight, right? And it looks more natural when its a bit layered.”  
  
He was not having her close herself up again and put a stop to it before she completely cut him off. ”Red, calm down. I’m going to finish this and then we’re going out shopping for furniture. You can pick out the curtain colours if you want.”  
  
She stayed quiet for a moment, considering his offer (his order, really) before slumping in her seat in silent defeat. ”Okay,” she conceded.  
  
Well, he got her to calm down at least. “Alright.” Bucky picked up the next section of hair and it failed to escape his notice that she barely moved at all this time.  
  
  
Red picked out olive green curtains which considering the apartment’s basic aesthetic of greens and browns actually went well with the desk and table chairs they purchased at the same store. It took them a longer trip to find somewhere that did mattresses, and after a short argument about what type of beds they should get and the fact there was next to no room in the apartment for two, they just settled on two single mattresses until they could find an actual bed or beds to agree on. It would be better than just sleeping on the floor, at least.  
  
Now that Red’s hair had air-dried on their trip, Bucky took note of how it looked shorter than it had when he cut it. They agreed on a length of shoulder-height which took a few trips back and forth with the scissors with Bucky’s concern about royally fucking it up and Red’s hair being longer than where the bottom of her bra lay on her back. And when it was dry, it hung where his own did, grazing the top of his shoulders.  
  
”Maybe I should get a haircut,” he’d said jokingly as they settled the desk into place in the kitchen.  
  
”I could do it for you,” Red had offered with a soft shrug.  
  
”Maybe later,” he’d nodded back, completely not intending to actually take her up on the offer. He didn’t think about it again until later than night after a shower, his first in the apartment after waiting for Red to be the guinea-pig. He still struggled with the temperature control even after Red had insisted it was incredibly simple and followed by a quietly muttered comment about his old age which he chose to ignore.   
  
But, stepping out and towel drying his hair he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Deciding to wash himself up, he trimmed his beard and cleaned up the sink before his eyes fell back on his hair. It was getting a bit long. Maybe he should have Red cut it.  
  
”Red?” he called out, dragging his pants on.  
  
”Yo,” she yelled back from the other room.  
  
”Can you come help me with this, please?” he asked, buttoning his jeans.  
  
She was quicker than he expected, opening the door and instantly her eyes were on the ceiling once she’d realised he had no shirt on. “Sorry.”  
  
He picked up his shirt. “It’s just a body, Red,” he said, pulling his shirt on with a smile. He found her shyness over the subject a little adorable.  
  
”Yeah but… your arm,” she said, eyes still staring up even when he was covered.  
  
It took him a second to understand but then he realised. She’d seen the part of his body that switched between flesh and metal, the healed skin leading from man to weapon. It probably made her uncomfortable and possibly disgusted, not embarrassed like he’d first assumed. That warm feeling from a moment before dissolved like a stomach tablet in water and left an itchy foam behind in between his shoulder blades.  
  
”It’s just a body, Red,” he said again, more serious this time, adjusting the sleeve covering the metal appendage.  
  
”Uh… what did you need help with?” She pulled her eyes off the chipping paint of the ceiling to look at him properly.  
  
He felt his own eyes shy away a little, flesh hand massaging his metal one. “I wanted to, uh…” It took him a second to remember his words. “I wanted to cut my hair.”  
  
”Ah. Cool.” Red replied, unaware of his internal embarrassment. She spied the scissors on the side and picked them up. “How short do you want it?”  
  
”Just a trim, I guess.”  
  
”Not like back in your army days?” she asked conversationally, pulling the stool from before up behind his knees.  
  
”No,” he decided, sitting down.  
  
”Okay,” Red moved closer and stood behind him, their eyes meeting in the mirror. She’d always assumed Bucky’s hair was black but from this close up she could see it was actually a really dark brown. She supposed it would be hard to tell when Bucky wore that cap of his almost 24/7. Maybe she should swap it for the Veterans cap she still had in her backpack from that one store trip back in Berlin.  
  
She nodded and reached out to pick up a small section with her fingers when Bucky stiffened like she’d thrown cold water on him. She assumed it was his way of trying not to flinch. She lifted the scissors and snipped off about an inch’s worth, damp hair falling to the floor silently.   
  
Bucky was still sitting ramrod straight, and continued that way while she continued with the haircut, but he wasn’t doing it to make it easier for her, he was doing it because he was nervous as hell. Anyone could tell just by looking at his stiff expression.  
  
”You can squeeze my leg if you like,” she offered him once she noticed his fists clenching knuckle-white on his knees.  
  
Bucky gave her a look, like he was trying to judge if she was just making fun of him, she wasn’t, and once he decided for himself she wasn’t he tentatively reached out and his flesh hand brushed her lower thigh. She recoiled, surprising herself and him, but encouraged him again pretending like it didn’t happen. Bucky was just as iffy as she was about it but eventually got a grip just above her knee and both of them settled.  
  
Red tried again, taking the scissors closer but watching for his flinch. He stared straight ahead but didn’t move an inch, even though his grip on her leg tightened. When the scissors cut the hair, his grip tightened to painful levels but Red refused to let him know that and instead moved on.  
  
They got all the way around eventually, Bucky having to switch which leg he squeezed when she moved to the other side of him and Red knew he’d left bruises why the way her legs stung but she still refused to tell him. It was a petty thing to get upset about anyway.  
  
Sweeping up with the brush Bucky insisted they get, the two retired to the mattresses laid out on the floor beside each other because there was no room to separate them and said goodnight, Red accomodating her bruising legs and Bucky ignoring a phantom pain in his metal arm.


	24. Picture

Alleyways had always been special to Bucky, whether he remembered why or not. Even during his time at HYDRA, when he was walked down the streets near where he was currently hiding out, his eyes would sometimes flick towards any nearby alleys, checking for something.   
  
At first, he thought it was just instinct, looking for something waiting in the darkness ready to leap out at him with a blade or gun, but the more and more notebooks he filled with his memories, the more he came to realise he wasn’t looking down those alleys because he was looking for the enemy. He was looking down those alleyways in case a lanky blond was picking a fight with someone twice his size and he could not finish alone. He would move on quickly once he noticed what he was doing, muttering “punk” under his breath and shaking his head.  
  
More recently, however, he’d been glancing down those alleyways expecting to find Red there instead, being trapped by a no-good group that were not looking to move along without throwing a few punches first. And that was exactly the thought that made him pause in his step and realise Red was no longer walking beside him on the street and in fact was nowhere to be seen.   
  
“Doll?” he asked, spinning in a circle as his eyes scanned around trying to spot wherever the brunette had gone. It wasn’t uncommon for her to roam sometimes, attention caught by something and disappearing like a spy in training. So perhaps she’d just wandered off again and he didn’t need to panic and jump to the conclusion of a possible kidnapping.   
  
He started to backtrack along the sidewalk, eyes narrowed in his search when a familiar yelp had his head snapping in the direction of a nearby sidestreet. He was stood at the end of it in a second, taking in the scene of Red being held up against a wall with a thug holding her there by a hand on her throat and a knife by her hip.   
  
He lunged forward without a second thought. The knife went flying and he grabbed the scrawny little man by the scruff of his collar, yanking him away from rudely invading Red’s personal space. “Get the hell off her.” He shoved the man towards the street none too gently. “Beat it,” the supersoldier growled in a tone that rivalled a wolf and the man scrambled away squeaking like a mouse. Bucky made sure he was well out of eyeline before he turned his attention back towards Red who stood awkwardly, shuffling a little as she straightened out her coat and not looking at him. “You alright?”  
  
”I’ll live,” she said, wringing her hands as she glanced at the knife scattered a few feet away.  
  
Bucky’s eyes scanned her up and down for damage. The only sign of injury he could make out were a few pink scratches on her throat but it wasn’t possible to tell if they were the mugger’s fault or hers when she tried to defend herself. Or at least Bucky assumed she’d tried to defend herself before the knife was brought into the equation.   
  
"Did he take anything?” he asked.  
  
”No. You were my supersoldier in a shining baseball cap. Again.” She gave him a small huffy laugh and she mumbled the last word sourly.  
  
His fingers brushed the new cap on his head, the only one he could find that morning, funnily enough, which also happened to have the words _“World War Two Veteran” _stamped across it. Red had denied all knowledge when questioned. ”Second time getting trapped in an alley in how many months? Sometimes I think you like getting into trouble," he teased gently with a smile.  
  
She gave a weaker one in reply, clearing her throat before starting to walk out of the alley and falling back into step towards the markets where they were heading originally.  
  
Bucky noticed her downtrodden look and attempted to lighten the mood, which he really should have remembered from the last time he attempted the same thing to just keep his mouth shut. “I’ve had my fair share of back alley brawls, most of them I didn’t even start.”   
  
”I find that hard to believe,” Red said with exactly the same tone and sarcasm as his ma used to. _Yes, it’s never you who starts them, is it James?_ he could hear his mother tutting in his ear.   
  
Bucky rolled his eyes. “I was mainly roped in by Steve who was always too dumb not to run away from a fight he couldn’t win."  
  
”I guess that’s the difference between him and I. I always run from the fight or I just accept I’m going to lose,” she responded bluntly.  
  
Bucky tried not to be swayed by the defeated tone. She was feeling down because she’d been cornered again and she felt helpless for it. He wouldn’t let her feel like that because once you felt like you were helpless, you’d already lost. ”Maybe I should show you some defence moves. Even if you do usually run from the fight, it’s good when you can get yourself the chance to. Fight to get away.” Maybe it would give her some more confidence too as well as provide a pleasant distraction to the boredom he knew they were both suffering as they sat around in the apartment either eating or waiting for Bucky to go off the rails again.  
  
”Fight to get away,” she repeated, her tone trailing off as she got lost in her own thoughts. Bucky kept his eyes on her but watching the path in front of her as well in case her daydreaming dearly affected her ability to not walk into lampposts or people. She soon pulled out of it, sliding her hands into her coat pockets. “I didn’t think that when I set out for an adventure there would be this many alleyway muggings.”  
  
”It happens to basically everyone,” he attempted to reassure her.  
  
”Yeah but twice though? I told you back luck follows me everywhere,” Red responded. “It’s a good job I don’t have a phone anymore otherwise he probably would’ve made off with that. He had a fun time trying to feel around for it though.”  
  
That caught his attention, slowing his walk. ”Are you alright?”  
  
”I’ll live,” she said what she said the last time he asked, crossing her arms over herself.  
  
”Red.”  
  
”You’re supposed to be using my other name,” she reminded him in sing-song.  
  
”Stop deflecting.”  
  
”I’m fine. Don’t make a fuss about it. Like you said, it happens to basically everyone.” She shrugged her folded arms with fake nonchalance.  
  
”Red,” he urged and before realising he was doing it reached towards her.  
  
”_I’m fine_.” She pulled away from his hand quick as anything, taking a few steps sideways and nearly knocking over an elderly couple right in front of her. An English apology offered, she stepped around them and walked ahead of Bucky by a good few paces, arms folded tightly over herself and head angled down to the floor.  
  
Bucky stood quietly on the sidewalk watching her walk further and further away and made a note to self that if he ever saw that mugger again, he’d snap their damn legs off.  
  
  
Browsing the markets was a less than relaxed affair. Red maintained her distance from Bucky as they wandered through the food stalls, Bucky picking out some plumbs and Red a punnet of cherries, until they reached a small electronics shop on the corner.  
  
Bucky had been thinking about his promise to Red, the one he’d made on the train after breaking and tossing her phone away. If he was honest, he’d been thinking about it ever since they got here and he realised the apartment had no clock. The only reason they’d known the time at all in the mornings was down to Red’s pocket watch, and Bucky had so far pretended to forget buying a proper clock when he noticed the little flash of self-confidence passing in Red’s expression whenever he asked for the time.   
  
But buying her a phone was a promise he’d made, and he also hoped it would prevent any type of cabin fever since they lived in such a small apartment together and there wasn’t much to do other than talk and wait, and neither person was really the type for small talk.   
  
So, leading Red into the store, he walked over to the phones section declaring “I made a promise. Pick whatever you want and I’ll get it for you.”   
  
Red, for once, didn’t argue with him when it came to buying her something, and after barely a glance at the aisle, she picked up a box with what Bucky recognised as the exact same phone she’d had before. Not that he’d expected much else from the young brunette, but he knew some people would take that as an opportunity to upgrade.   
  
”Its a classic,” she said, handing it over.  
  
Bucky nodded, taking it but not approaching the counter just yet much to Red’s confusion, but instead started strolling around to the smaller tech products like he was looking for something. “You might wanna wander for a bit,” he advised but Red could hear the obvious order for her to get. So she did, disappearing behind another shelf as Bucky picked up a few bits and pieces out of the DIY and Repairs section. He didn’t take too long, picking his share and heading to the counter, soon joined by Red.  
  
Red didn’t comment on the scattering of things he bought when she looked them over but Bucky raised an eyebrow when he saw her purchasing an English translation of “Bionics for Beginners” before they left. He wasn’t sure about her intention but he didn’t feel inclined to ask.   
  
Red caught his curious gaze and answered the question for him anyway. “It looked interesting. And I liked Bio in school,” she excused with a shrug.  
  
Bucky decided that was fair enough and led the way back to the apartment.  
  
  
He didn’t give her the phone when they returned to the apartment and Red didn’t bring it up, heading to sit on her own mattress and start reading through the bionics book she purchased almost immediately.   
  
Bucky meanwhile pulled up a chair to the table in the kitchen area, dropping the little wires and circuit parts he’d bought and got to work on fixing the phone to where it needed to be. It took some tweaking and some brain racking as he tried to remember how to do this but maybe thirty minutes later and some intermittent mental cursing when he had to pause and think about his next step, Bucky was snapping the back cover back on the phone, standing and handing it over to the busy brunette.   
  
”It’s not traceable now. Not sure about hackable, that was never my skillset, so pick a good password,” he explained when she looked oddly at the desk behind him and back at the phone, but she nodded and took it with a thanks.  
  
Bucky cleared up his desk and picked up his day-old newspaper off the side, sitting down and reading through as Red set up the phone. She changed the language and the time according to her pocket watch and skipped basically everything else because she never needed to use the other useless apps the phone came with. She did, however, note down her parents’ numbers in the contacts but paused when going to add her friends’ numbers, hesitating over the number pad for too long before clicking the power button and putting it to the side, reaching for her bionics book.  
  
”Not gonna set a background picture?” Bucky asked.  
  
”You know what a background picture for a phone is?” Red raised an eyebrow.  
  
”I’m not _that _clueless about technology, Red. I did just fix it for you.”  
  
Red glanced down at the phone by her thigh. ”I don’t think so. I didn’t have one on my last phone either, I just chose one of the backgrounds it came with.” She shrugged.  
  
”Why not?” he asked, curiously.  
  
She could tell him. She could tell him how she hates looking at herself, she could tell him she hates how she looks no matter what makeup and filters she uses. Maybe he would understand.   
  
But instead, she just tells him “Not my kinda thing” and leaves it at that.  
  
Bucky lifted the newspaper back in front of him, turning over the page. ”I don’t like cameras either,” he said quietly under the rustling of paper.  
  
Red looked at him, and his eyes flicked to meet hers then back to the paper again, a look that lasted no longer than a moment, but that moment shared was a moment understood.   
  
She looked down at the phone by her thigh, a black screen showing her a low angle reflection of a face she hated, a face she didn’t want to see. She looked away like she always did.  
  
_Coward,_ her mind scolded.  
  
She ignored the self-inflicted jab and turned back to her book, but found it almost impossible to read. Usually, she read to forget, but she couldn’t shake the question of the picture now. She sighed, marking the page in her book, wishing she could just hide behind the words and stop people staring at her and judging.  
  
Red paused at that thought and a second later an idea sprung to mind. She reached over and grabbed her backpack, digging through it before retrieving the stolen cap of Bucky’s and sticking it on her head. Angling the brim down so low the angle of the camera couldn’t see any discernable part of her face and only her hair, throwing up a peace sign she held the phone high. The shutter click went off and she brought the phone to her face to check it.  
  
”So that’s where my hat went.” Bucky’s tone had her ducking her head guiltily and pulling the brim further down over her face. “Little thief.”  
  
”I _borrowed _it, plus I gave you a replacement for the time being,” she defended, gesturing vaguely to where she thought the counter would be where Bucky had dropped the ‘Veterans’ hat earlier.  
  
”Theif,” Bucky hissed, but Red could hear the teasing underneath even without looking at his face.  
  
She took the hat off, tossing it over to Bucky’s mattress in a carefree arc. “Arrest me, officer,” she declared to nobody in particular before falling back on the mattress and spreading like a starfish.  
  
”I don’t have any handcuffs,” Bucky replied conversationally, turning a page in the newspaper.  
  
”I don’t know whether to be happy or surprised with that,” Red said, staring up at the ceiling that could definitely do with a fresh lick of paint.  
  
Bucky hummed non-committally.  
  
Red turned her head towards his mattress, seeing the plain cap lying there innocently. Having looked at the photo, she’d resembled Bucky’s appearance from the angle of the shot, hair to the shoulders and hat pulled down over her eyes to hide them away from unwanted attention. If her hair were a few shades darker, she could have been easily mistaken for the supersoldier. She could imagine them side by side, definitely looking much more like brother and sister, just like their ID cards described, than they did without the coverings.  
  
”Take a picture with me,” she suddenly blurted out of seemingly nowhere.  
  
Bucky folded down a section of his paper to glance at her, brow drawn in confusion.  
  
She bit her lip, assessing the idea. It might not actually be that bad, now she was considering it. “Please? You can wear your hat and stuff, just pull it down over your face like I did.” She picked up the hat in question, placing it back on her head. Bucky looked unmoved and like he was getting an argument ready, so she pulled out her puppy eyes and knelt up on the mattress. “Please, James?”  
  
If asked, Bucky would deny until his dying day that a World War veteran who had been mercilessly tortured, interrogated, and broken down in the most inhumane ways was being swayed by a twenty-year-olds’ puppy eyes. She even pouted her bottom lip as she opened up her doe eyes, filled with innocence and naivety. He scolded himself for even considering the idea, but the longer he looked at her, the more he found himself compelled to grant the request, especially if he had the option to cover his face.  
  
”This photo never leaves your phone.”  
  
”Done,” she agreed immediately.  
  
Bucky sighed and reached for the cap on the counter, and Red was at his side in an instant. One the cap was on his head and pulled down by one hand, Red did the same and held up the camera. They were a little apart in distance and the camera struggled to get them both in frame.  
  
”Give it to me. I’m taller,” Bucky said and Red handed over the phone. Using his human hand, he held up the camera but they were still too far to get both in the shot.   
  
Red edged closer and her hand brushed his, both stiffened but no one said a word, and when Red shuffled closer more their shoulders pressed together, which seemed to be the only time both were in shot. They were silent and took the picture, Red letting out a breath as Bucky brought the phone down to look.  
  
The two were stood pressed together, Bucky’s red shirt on the left and Red’s grey one on the right. Both had a hand on their caps, holding them down over their faces, Bucky’s metal fingers visible at the top of his hat. The angle didn’t hide the whole face, the hats cutting off just above their lips so Bucky’s stubble was visible and you could definitely now see the difference in their hair colours, two shades of brown falling to the shoulders like sets of curtains, one straight and one wavy.   
  
You would have to have a very distinct knowledge of either person to be able to tell it was them, Bucky reasoned when his instinct to destroy it popped up in his mind.  
  
Even her own mother wouldn’t recognise her there, Red thought.   
  
Bucky held the phone out once he’d approved. Red nodded, setting it as the lock screen.   
  
When the screen fell dark, Red looked up from the phone and to Bucky, and only then did either one realise they were still as close as the picture described, arms touching and heads inches away. The brims of their hats would scrape if one tilted their head a little further forwards. But no one flinched away.  
  
Red was the first to step back, because the feeling Bucky was giving off from silently staring at her had started to crawl up her back. Giving another nod and a quiet “thank you”, she retreated to her mattress, picking up her book and burying herself in the words.   
  
Her absence snapped Bucky out of whatever he’d been thinking and he picked up his newspaper again, sitting down quietly and for the next few minutes having just as much trouble reading the newspaper as he would trying to read it with no eyes.


	25. Scream

Red woke up to screaming.  
  
It wasn’t the first time she’d ever done so, but it was the first time it wasn’t a member of her family. And once she realised that, she flipped over in her bed to see Bucky standing with one hand braced on the wall and the other squeezing his head, screaming loud like his life depended on it.  
  
Red sat up, tossing the covers off and wincing as the screams got almost too loud to handle. “James!” she called out above the screaming. He hadn’t seen her yet. “James!” she cried louder, and this time, his screams stopped like a video paused.   
  
His expression was scrunched in pain, the hand on his head clenching tight and his metal arm on the wall scratching the paint. But, slowly, the expression began to melt, the hand unclenched and laid by his side. The hand on the wall remained, but it wasn’t scratching into the paintwork anymore, and soon Bucky was staring forward, dead-eyed like a doll.   
  
Red swallowed, looking him up and down before shuffling ever so carefully closer to his side of the room. “James?” she asked quietly, trying to catch his eye.  
  
His head snapped to her and she flinched back. Then he lunged at her.  
  
“Whoa!” She dived out of the way a fraction of a second quick enough and rounded into the kitchen while Bucky squirmed around in her sheets, standing up with his legs a tangled mess with the blankets.  
  
No. That wasn’t Bucky. The dark eyes, the narrowed expression, the stiff body language, the look of pure murder in his face like a man with a mission.  
  
She was facing the Winter Soldier, and he was _pissed_.  
  
Red slowly reached out one hand on instinct to the counter to grab something for defence, and his eyes tracked her movements, approaching her as soon as her hand had begun moving. She grabbed something and hurled it, the wooden spoon bouncing off his chest harmlessly. He rushed her, and her fingers just brushed the handle of something just in time for him to pick her up painfully by the hips and drag her away from the kitchen towards the mattresses.   
  
The grip on her hips turned bruising, almost as if he was aiming to burrow his fingers underneath her skin, and she struggled in his grip, the item in her hand heavy and she hoped to whoever was listening it was good enough for a supersoldier.  
  
He finally managed to drag her squirming body back to the mattresses and lifted her into the air by the neck with his metal arm which, just like she remembered last time, hurt like a motherfucker and choked her. She gasped in her breaths, staring down at the Soldier’s cold eyes and grasped her weapon with all the strength she had, and swung it down on his head with a solid thunk, the skillet breaking on impact, splitting into a pan and the handle. The vibrations travelled painfully up Red’s arm in reply but she didn’t notice, eyes on the suddenly stock-still Winter Soldier who a second later lost his grip and fell to the floor in a heap, her following a second after and landing half on Bucky, half on the mattress.  
  
”Ow,” she croaked sorely, hand flying to her throat to feel the red patches, still holding the skillet handle in one hand. Rubbing her throat, she glanced over at the soldier who had landed on his front, and (Which all things considered was definitely not the wisest idea she’d ever had) Red kicked him in the side to check he wasn’t just playing dead. After concluding he wasn’t, she backed up a little on her mattress until her back was on the wall and she tried to calm down, sucking in sharp breaths to stop herself panicking.  
  
It was almost all for nought when out of the corner of her eye she saw Bucky’s body shift a little and she held her breath.  
  
His arm, the flesh one, came up to rub the back of his neck and he let out a quiet groan of pain into the pillow beneath him. Moaning, he lifted his head and squinted, looking around in complete confusion before his eyes landed on the girl staring warily back at him, handle clutched as a ready weapon in her hand. ”Red?” he asked before he groaned again and rubbed his head.  
  
Red let out her breath in a rush. ”Thank fuck.”  
  
James pushed himself to sit up, rubbing his head with both hands before dropping them to the bed. The metal one hit the top of the pan with a dull thunk, catching his attention. He picked up the broken pan in his hand before his eyes trailed back to Red, spying the handle. He paused.  
  
”Fuck!” he yelled at the ceiling.  
  
The girl flinched, both at the yell and the swear itself. Bucky didn’t usually swear so casually, he could swear like a sailor when he was doing something finicky, sure, but in a silent room, nope.  
  
Red bit her lip, eyes flicking up and down his body. ”James?”  
  
”How did you get him to stop?” he asked, though the pan kinda answered that for him.  
  
”I hit you really hard with a skillet,” Red said.  
  
Bucky nodded, dropping the pan and running both hands over his face and through his hair with a long sigh.   
  
Red relaxed against the wall, now certain her own Bucky was back, not… _that _thing, the fake one. “So…” She cleared her throat at the scratchy tone. “That was the Winter Soldier.”  
  
Bucky was silent. Red was almost afraid he’d snapped back into whatever mindset he’d been in a moment before, but then he stood up and turned to her with a steady look. ”Get out,” he said.  
  
Red blinked. ”What?”  
  
Bucky grabbed her backpack and held it out to her. ”Pack your bag. Get out of here. I knew this was a stupid idea right from the start,” he hissed at himself, his free hand tugging his hair.  
  
Red stood up, waving her hands. ”Whoa, stop, stop, stop. I’m not going anywhere.” She looked down at the handle she clutched and put it on the table with a head shake.  
  
Bucky levelled her with a look. ”You’re going.” His tone left no room for arguments, holding out her bag.  
  
Red refused to be given no options, taking a step forward. ”No. I’m not,” she replied in the same growling tone he used.  
  
Bucky didn’t back down. ”You aren’t safe here.”  
  
Red didn’t either. ”And that’s new?”  
  
Bucky screwed his eyes shut tightly before reopening them. ”Red, I nearly just killed you!”  
  
”And?” She shrugged.  
  
Bucky stood straight, expression unreadable. ”And?” He repeated with an unnaturally calm tone. Red watched him, swallowing and regretting it when pain flared up. Bucky stayed staring at her with that unreadable expression for a few seconds before he turned around, dropping her backpack on the floor and staring intensely at the wall instead. “ “And”, she says.”  
  
The silence that stretched in the apartment was deathly. Nothing moved, nothing breathed, the air was thick and stiflingly hot, the tension like a balloon just one more breath from popping.  
  
Bucky turned away from the wall back towards the girl, his eyes down on the floor. He didn’t say anything, but instead stood on his bed, slowly sunk down to sit, and then laid down on top of it, staring up at the ceiling in silence, breathing evenly.  
  
Slowly, Red edged towards him, towards her own bed, following the exact same movements he did just on her own side, and was soon laying down facing the ceiling with him.  
  
Bucky blinked slowly. ”I can’t escape him. I’m never going to get him out of my head. I’m always going to be a monster.”  
  
Red turned her head his way. ”You’re not a monster, James.”  
  
He laughed loudly and brazenly, bitterly and sarcastically. It pinged nastily off the walls like metal on metal, causing Red to bristle and twist her head back up.  
  
”You’re not.” She stuck to her theory.  
  
”You read the articles. You know what I’ve done.”  
  
"What you did all those years… it wasn't you. You didn't have a choice."  
  
His head turned to her. "Don't tell me, Red, that it isn't my fault. I remember everything, everyone I killed. Of all things I remember about my past, I remember that. You can't erase that much blood from a person's hands." His hands at his sides clenched into fists. “I’ll never be clean of that,” he said, softer this time, and Red looked over to meet his eyes. "Don't," he snapped immediately. "Don't look at me like that."  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"Like you understand." he clarified, his voice dropping to a gentle whisper. "You couldn't possibly understand."  
  
Red’s heart clenched when he heard his voice, it wasn’t the voice of her Bucky, it was the voice of a man broken, exhausted, weak. A man who felt alone.  
  
”I can try.”  
  
”Don’t.”   
  
”Let me try. Please. You can’t keep it to yourself forever.” she pleaded.  
  
”Why not?” he sniffed back.  
  
Red thought about it, lips rolling in for a few seconds as she chewed on her words. ”Because it will never get better like that. You need to tell someone.”  
  
Bucky scoffed. ”Are you volunteering for me to ruin your mind, too?”   
  
“Yes,” she said with so much honesty Bucky couldn’t believe this moment was real. He had to still be dreaming. That idea was lost when he felt something brush his hand, and when he looked down, he saw Red’s knuckles gently brushing the back of his, but she pulled back as soon as he noticed.   
  
“Tell me your story, James. All of it, not just pretty pages,” she practically begged him.  
  
Bucky closed his eyes and took a deep breath in. Consequences be damned, he warned her,  
  
"There's someone in my head but it isn't me. You know what that feels like? To be conscious while someone else uses your body, locked inside your own mind? Unable to stop myself as I carried out HYDRA’s orders. The part no one tells you about brainwashing is that you’re still in there. I was in there, screaming for it to stop, for it to just end, but it didn’t matter. The Winter Soldier did what they wanted, what was ordered, no questions asked. Those ten words that snapped me right back into their perfect soldier when I didn't want to comply. I was awake. But I was stuck in there. Watching. Just watching."   
  
He licked his lips and continued, “And times like now, when he just… takes over. He’s gonna kill you one day, you know that? And I’m gonna be powerless to stop him. Do you hear me, Red? I’m going to _kill _you if you don’t escape now.”  
  
Red wasn’t fazed in the slightest. "I guess I’ll just have to get better at aiming for your head, then.”  
  
He shook his head, grumbling to the ceiling. ”You don’t understand the danger you’re in.”   
  
”Maybe I just don’t care.”  
  
”Then you’re stupid.”  
  
”I thought I was wise?”  
  
”Not if you’re still here.”  
  
Red sighed. ”James, I told you already, I’m not leaving.”  
  
Bucky tried one last time, looking at her with a soft expression, a vulnerable one. He let her see through a little gap in the curtains, into what he tried to hide away the most from the world. ”Please,” he said to her.  
  
Red watched him with a gentle gaze for a moment before answering. ”No.” She watched him grunt and turn away before questioning “Have you killed me yet?”  
  
A beat. ”No.” Then, “I’ve thought about it, though. _He _has.”  
  
Red couldn’t pretend she wasn’t surprised, or disturbed, by that fact. A million thoughts ran through her head at once. ”Why?” she urged.  
  
”Because he can.” Bucky scoffed.  
  
”James,” Red said because she knew there was more to it than that, and Bucky hated how she could just apparently see right through him. He wondered if she’d been able to do that this whole time and just chose not to tell him.  
  
He sucked up his pride and told her the truth. “Because I care about you. I care about what happens to you. He sees that as a threat to the “mission”, _weakness_.”  
  
She hummed in thought. ”I care about you too, you know. That’s why I’m not leaving.”   
  
He tried one last time. ”Please leave.”  
  
She shook her head. ”Not gonna happen.”  
  
”I’ll leave without you.”  
  
”I’ll track you down. I might not be a super spy but I can do a lot when I put my mind to it. And I’ll probably get myself into a lot of trouble along the way, but you won’t be there to save me,” she responded, fully confident and completely willing to do so.  
  
”I didn’t expect you to be capable of emotional blackmail, Red.”  
  
”Oh, wait, I didn’t mean-”  
  
”I’m joking.”  
  
Red huffed and shook her head fondly, turning once again to look straight up. The burning in her throat had faded to a dull ache, and she was sure she’d have bruises by the evening. Bucky would definitely reprimand himself, again, especially after last time when he spent about three days being moody over it. But she would rather feel pain than nothing at all.  
  
“This isn’t even my Worst Day Ever, if I really think about it,” Red announced to the room.  
  
”A murderous assassin coming after you isn’t your Worst Day Ever? I’d hate to know what it actually is." Bucky chuckled humourlessly.  
  
Red’s fingers fidgeted with the sheets scrunched awkwardly beneath her. "This does not come close," she answered quietly.  
  
Bucky’s eyes flicked over but he said nothing.   
  
Red shifted on her bed, propping herself up with one elbow. "I'm sorry. I’m not a therapist, James. I can't undo what's been done to you and your memory, I wish I could. The past can't be rewritten by you or me or by anyone. But what I can do is stay with you, help to try and pick up the pieces, pick up the pages and put them back together to make the picture clear. And if you want me to leave, you’re gonna have to think of a better excuse than killing me, because that doesn’t scare me.” She dropped herself back down, and her hand brushed his again, but he didn’t mind it this time, not bothering to look or move away.  
  
_”What does scare you?”,_ the question was on the tip of his tongue, but he forced it back down his throat before it could sound.  
  
”Why do you want to help me?” he asked instead.  
  
It took a long time for Red to give him an answer. ”Because you deserve to have someone on your side for once.” She sounded like she talked from experience, but Bucky again didn’t ask.  
  
”Is that what you think I deserve?” He felt her fingers twitch beside his, and his own twitch in response, almost tangling together.  
  
”I think you deserve more,” she said.  
  
”What more?”  
  
Red chewed on her lip. ”I think you deserve a chance, a future.” Her fingers slid into his palm, and in wordless understanding, he held her hand there in a gentle grasp. “A friend.”


	26. Training

Red and Bucky had stayed laying down for the rest of the morning, holding hands in quiet content, and only bothering to get up when hunger announced itself to the silent room with a loud rumble.  
  
Sitting at the table together, Bucky could barely manage to tear his eyes off the newly forming bruises covering Red’s neck and collar. He could already tell they were going to be worse than last time’s.  
  
’_Last time’,_ he berated himself silently, _you just can’t stop yourself from hurting people, can you?  
  
_He had a feeling Red knew what he was thinking when she looked up from her food and caught him spying. She looked ready to give him a long speech about why he shouldn’t feel bad and how it was her own fault and all that, but she seemed to decide it wasn’t the time and soon forgot about it, returning to her food instead.  
  
Bucky didn’t know whether he was thankful or not for that.  
  
The rest of the day passed quietly and quickly. Bucky had offered Red a pack for her neck but she politely declined, insisting it didn’t hurt that much which both of them knew was a complete lie. Anyone just looking, even if they didn’t know what had happened, would be able to tell her neck must burn like fire. Regardless, when they went to sleep, Bucky noted how she slept on her back rather than her side to avoid pressure on the tender area but didn’t say a word, turning onto his side and trying not to get caught in the downward spiral of blame, because he felt like Red would somehow know.  
  
He went to sleep on those thoughts but woke up thinking of food, or more accurately, smelling it. He pried open his eyes to a bright apartment and an empty mattress beside him with the scent of cooked meat in the air. He turned on his side and propped himself on an elbow to see Red mulling around the kitchen, humming a gentle tune to herself he’d never heard before. She wasn’t tone-deaf, thankfully, which made becoming fully aware and awake that much easier.  
  
“What are you doing?” His voice cracked when he asked, and he cleared his throat to combat it.  
  
Red didn’t even flinch at his voice. ”Making breakfast. I woke up first and you had a rough day yesterday,” she replied, sliding something out of the pan she held onto plates sitting on the counter.  
  
”So did you,” Bucky remarked, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.  
  
”Don’t worry about it. I’ve had worse.” She brushed it off like her hands on her jeans before setting the plates on the table alongside two drink mugs.  
  
Bucky stood up, stretching out both arms above his head and hearing the joints in both creak with effort. He was getting old. ”Well, I hope whatever you made is filling because you’re gonna need it. I’m teaching you how to defend yourself today.” He turned and walked over to the kitchen, sitting down across from the brunette.   
  
”What?” Red paused, halfway to sitting.  
  
”I told you a few days ago I’d teach you some basic defence moves. Today’s the day.” Bucky picked up his fork and tucked in, not breaking in his stride.  
  
Red resumed sitting down and looked at her plate for a moment. ”Are you teaching me these things so I can defend myself against other people or so I can defend myself against you?” she asked him seriously.  
  
”Both.”   
  
Well, at least he wasn’t denying it.  
  
”Bacon and eggs since its what we had in.” Red moved them on, picking up her own fork and digging in.  
  
Breakfast was silent as was usual, no need for conversation, but Red couldn’t stop her fidgeting with the fork whenever she was chewing, her other hand busying itself tapping out a quiet rhythm against the tabletop. It didn’t go unnoticed but it wasn’t pointed out. Bucky figured it was just nerves.  
  
After the food was finished and dishes were cleared away, Bucky lead Red over to the mattresses, kicking the blankets and pillows to the sides to clear the space.   
  
Raising his hands in a demonstration of a defensive starting stance, he instructed, ”Alright. Arms up in front, hands in fists, feet shoulder-width apart. Let’s see what we’re working with here.”  
  
Red had never had a lick of combat training in her life, but that was fine, it just meant Bucky didn’t have to correct any bad habits she had picked up already and they would start from scratch. Of course, Bucky already had three main advantages against her when they started. One - he was a soldier and had the training to match. Two - He was a _super_soldier with basically enhanced everything. Three - Metal Arm. He took all three into consideration when he instructed her to hit his palm when he held it up.  
  
Bucky turned out to be a very patient teacher, Red was surprised to find. She fell face-first down on the mattress more times than she’d care to admit and though she expected him to just grow frustrated and bored with the incompetency he never sighed and he never laughed, only offered her a hand and helped to pull her back on her feet. Usually, it was only five moments later he was knocking her back down again but he didn’t once refuse to help her back up.  
  
Bucky figured out that while Red perhaps wasn’t the most coordinated in attacks, she was actually pretty damn quick when it came to dodging and blocking, and with Red being much smaller than his normal opponents (and him) he changed tactics. He tailored his training to her talents, coaching her for speed and fluidity over brute force and heavy attacks.  
  
”It’s like dancing,” he’d said at some point, attempting to explain the different ways she could move around without tripping over herself.  
  
”I’ve never danced,” she’d responded, shifting one foot outwards and the other crossing over like a box step.  
  
Bucky furrowed his brow, looking at her face instead of her feet. “Never?”  
  
She shook her head, still moving and not noticing his confusion. “Is that something else you’re gonna teach me?” She didn’t ask it seriously, practising the footwork over again as Bucky chewed on this new information. She was a twenty year old and had never danced, he suspected she also meant not even just swaying with someone on the dancefloor of a nightclub. How?  
  
”I’ve not danced for some time. I probably couldn’t keep up with your generations’ techno beats or whatever you call that music that sounds like throwing a drum set down the stairs,” Bucky snarked with a smile.  
  
Red snorted. ”I prefer classical, actually. Mellow jazz, sometimes. Dad has a record player at home and a bunch of vintage vinyl records he sometimes plays in the house but he never lets anyone else touch them in case they get broken. He’s very proud.” She paused her feet, looking up at him. “When I was little, I used to sneak downstairs and play them when no one else was home. He always knew, though, somehow. “A Dad Superpower” he would call it, I call it being just this side of OCD.” She held up a finger and thumb not too far apart with a scrunched face. Then she shrugged, dropping her hand and returning to her movements. “Who knows? We might be into the same stuff.”  
  
”Who knows,” he repeated, deadpan.   
  
Red scoffed softly and they returned to their training.  
  
Lunch rolled around and they took a break, Bucky making a mental list of things to try with Red now satisfied he’d found her style. She was a fast learner, he’d give her that, but she needed a lot of practice to pull off the manoeuvres he wanted to show her, the ones that would hopefully keep her safe from the Winter Soldier, or at least safe enough to give herself the chance to run.  
  
Red never complained. To be honest, Bucky couldn’t think of a time where she really complained about something he said or did, and he assumed it was because she was instinctively aware that whatever he did or said was for the best and for a reason, but it did nag at him a little. When he said they were going straight back to training after lunch, Red did give an exaggerated sigh but got up dutifully, ready to continue, ready to try, and it made him smile to see.  
  
They spent another hour or so working on dodging and not falling on her face before Bucky recognised the small grimaces of someone trying to hide physical pain behind a straight face. He called it a day for them both, knowing her muscles were probably tiring out by this point and let her be. Of course, she instantly sat down with her bionics book and he wasn’t surprised, shuffling around the kitchen making a start on preparing dinner.  
  
He also wasn’t surprised when Red wasn’t completely thrilled with the idea of getting out of bed the next day, he being the first up and making breakfast before hearing the blankets ruffling behind him as Red came back to the land of the conscious.  
  
It didn’t take long before he heard a small whining noise muffled by a pillow followed by a small, ”James, my arms hurt.” She sounded almost shy about it, but not enough to stop it being a complaint laced with a long-suffering groan.  
  
”That’s because you’ve been using muscles you haven’t used in ages,” Bucky responded smartly, pouring them both a drink.  
  
”I’m twenty years old, James. If I haven’t used them until now, do I _really _need them?” she asked him, sitting up with a wince and rolling her right shoulder and neck in tandem.  
  
Bucky chuckled at the little display and rolled his eyes fondly. A sudden memory whipped through his head of his early days in army training, feeling that burn of rigorous training complete with a pushy captain who clearly gave no shits about how much his men were hurting because there was a war going on, don’t you know?   
  
He shook it off, putting the drinks on the table and glancing over at her trying to loosen herself up. ”Come on, get up. I’ll show you some stretches that may help,” he promised.  
  
It was enough to get her standing on wobbly legs, stretching her arms above her and shaking out her bedhead. “Alright, alright. I’m up.”  
  
Bucky doubted that when he watched her take one step, yelp, and faceplant into the mattress beneath her, blankets a tangled mess at her feet. “Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s down.”  
  
”Not funny,” she grumbled into her pillow.


	27. Muscle

For the next week or so, Bucky continued training Red every day. They’d wake up, have breakfast, he would explain a few things and they would practice. Red was landing on her ass less and less and Bucky was growing more and more confident in her abilities to get away from danger. Not quite a could-run-away-from-a-supersoldier standard but she was progressing.  
  
They didn’t run into any problems again until the week starting May. Monday morning was when Bucky had woken first and got to cooking breakfast for the two.  
  
”Come on. Up,” he called out once he was sure she was awake.  
  
”Don’t wanna,” she replied, but it wasn’t exactly a whine like usual. It was oddly calm and like she’d been awake for longer than he’d first assumed.  
  
”Red,” he tried again but she didn’t respond more than a grunt and a small shift of her body. He rolled his eyes and put down the spatula in his hand, walking over and looking at her snuggled up comfortably in the covers. If they didn’t have things to do today he would be tempted to just leave her there as she asked. But instead, he knelt down at the head of her bed, trying to see her face from being shielded by the pillow.  
  
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked much gentler than before.  
  
She snuggled further into the covers, hiding most of her face from his sight. ”My shoulder really hurts.” Her voice was muffled by the pillow.  
  
”It’s just lactic acid,” he explained.  
  
”No, like, it really really hurts.” She shifted and suddenly yelled “Ow!” raising her head and gripping her shoulder with gritted teeth and a pained expression to match.  
  
Bucky looked her over carefully. ”You might’ve pulled a muscle.”  
  
”No, it just feels really tight,” she said, shaking her head.  
  
”Might be a knot,” he suggested instead.  
  
”How do I get rid of it?”  
  
He’d shown her some stretches before that helped loosen her joints when they flared up from the unusual change in her non-existent exercise routine so it would make sense he would know how to fix it.  
  
”Massaging it usually works,” he replied, sitting down cross-legged by her head.  
  
She shuffled a bit, sitting up properly and moving one hand around behind her, feeling around her shoulder blades before she stopped. ”Uh… James.” She was still facing away when he hummed inquiringly. “I- I can’t reach.” She ducked her head in embarrassment, chewing her lip.  
  
Bucky wasn’t sure what to do with that. But one option stood out more than most. ”Do you want me to, uh…” He cleared his throat, gesturing to her shoulder when she looked over it and to him. “…help?” he finished kind of timidly as he realised what he was offering to do.  
  
Red seemed just as surprised by his offer if not more, and ducked her head again. ”If you want to… then yes please,” she accepted and he nodded, taking a deep breath before instructing her to lay on her front as he moved away the covers. She did so obediently and tried to relax.  
  
He hesitated when he went to touch her shoulder, both hands freezing inches above her shirt. “May I?” It seemed like a stupid question but he just wanted to be sure, and the nod he received made him feel a little better. He nodded his head and reminded him to just breathe before delicately putting his flesh hand down on her shoulder first, his thumb pressing around to feel out for the knot.  
  
“Ouch!”  
  
Found it.  
  
”This will hurt worse before it hurts less. Sorry in advance.” He apologised, shuffling closer on his knees so he was positioned by her side and taking both hands to softly work out the knot. He was probably being a little too gentle out of fear he would actually hurt her which in his mind was a fate worse than being captured.  
  
He’s not sure when that ideology formed in his head but he was recognising it now.  
  
Red kept her breathing steady as he touched her, not flinching like when they were giving each other haircuts but wincing every so often as the sore spot grew with the pressure. After a while, however, of bitten back grunts and hisses and being afraid of antagonising him with little petty whines of pain because it was just a knot in the shoulder Red stop whining, it started to feel a little looser and the tension began to melt out of the muscle.  
  
“You’re-” She coughed when her voice cracked. “You’re really good with your hands like that.”  
  
”Practice, I guess,” he said mostly on auto-pilot as he worked.  
  
”You rub a lot of people’s shoulders in your time?” she asked. Then, “That sounded weird. Sorry.”  
  
Bucky dismissed the apologetic tone. ”Steve had every health condition under the sun before he was Captain America. Massages helped his circulation.”  
  
She hummed softly, shoulder lifting off the mattress a little as his hands moved higher. ”Seems a bit intimate,” she commented.  
  
”It wasn’t- it wasn’t like that.” Bucky’s hands stuttered just as he did.  
  
”I was kidding,” Red said softly.  
  
”Oh,” Bucky replied, and Red’s right shoulder finally loosened completely, her body melting into the bed below her, but Bucky had apparently felt the need to compensate as his hands roamed over to the opposite shoulder and began to apply the same treatment.  
  
”You don’t have to…” Red twisted her head to look at him but stopped when his eyes flicked to hers, the concentration in the cool blues more intense than she’d imagined and it startled her into silence as well as a suppressed shiver for reasons she could not name. “Doesn’t matter,” she finished, and though he squinted at her as if trying to read her mind and find the rest of her beginning argument, his hands continued to rub at her muscles and she rested her cheek back on the pillow.  
  
Red spied her bionics book lying out by her backpack and bit her lip as she remembered something from the third chapter. “How much can you feel with your metal arm?” She felt Bucky’s hands freeze on her back. “You don’t have to answer,” she assured quietly.  
  
It took a few seconds but slowly Bucky returned to his rhythm. ”It’s not as sensitive as the real one, obviously, but I can distinguish between soft and hard objects like a piece of fruit or a chair. I used to always have to focus pretty hard when using it if I was holding delicate things in case I accidentally crushed it. It’s gotten easier with time but there are those few moments where a glass shatters because of bad judgement and too much pressure.” His touch grew firmer as he talked but never to the point of painful. Then he said, “It will always be a weapon no matter how I use it.”  
  
Red heard the bitter tone in his voice and could hear the self-hatred within, even over something that wasn’t his fault in getting or gifted to him with his permission. ”You use it for other things, mainly as a functioning arm because that’s what it is,” Red argued gently.  
  
”A functioning arm made of a titanium alloy with added strength and mobility details. It was designed as a weapon before it was designed as an appendage.”  
  
His hands moved onto her spine, now feeling around the centre of her back, unbidden, but Red was far from complaining as her brain had now pretty much turned to mush. Which was why she startled him when she flinched when his fingers brushed over the bruises on her hips, ones from where he’d dragged her in the kitchen that day, ones she’d not told him about. He retracted his hands from her when she did, trying to work out where on her body he’d hit nor perhaps snagged in the indents of his metal fingers. She relaxed back into the bed and tried to pretend like it didn’t happen.  
  
Bucky wasn’t so willing to let it go, staring down at both hands, turning them over and curling them in and out of fists. “I sometimes forget how fragile people can be compared to my strength, even without the arm. So easy to break. Why are you letting me touch you like this, Red?”  
  
She turned onto her side and looked up at him. "I'm not a china doll, James. You're not going to break me like glass if you touch me."  
  
"I could."  
  
"You're not going to."  
  
”Your neck says otherwise.”  
  
”Those weren’t from you now were they?” She caught his eye and kept it, staring deep into the lost and lonely blues no one had been bothered enough to notice in months on end.  
  
Red’s casual confidence was scary to him. She’d made it this far and she hadn’t turned away, hadn’t run for her life, and remained at his side regardless of how many cruel and dangerous moments he’d shared with her. It shook him at the same time it relaxed him. She said he deserved a friend. He knew he deserved so much less than her.  
  
He cleared his throat and stood up, shaking out his hands and looking down at her watching him. “Right. That’s enough resting. Breakfast and then back to sparring. I thought of a particular move you might be good at.”  
  
  
That Wednesday, the 4th of May according to the newspaper, was when Bucky finally found something useful in the pages. There had been a bombing the day before in Lagos, something to do with the theft of a biological weapon from the Institute for Infectious Diseases, averted by members of “The Avengers” with notable casualties. But stuck on the front page was the picture, the captured image of Captain America, Steve, in his full uniform directing a crowd of people away from an exploded building.  
  
Sitting down at the kitchen table after lunch he read the article in full. The incident stuck out more than any others he’d read but he couldn’t put his finger on why, it itched something terrible at the back of his mind but he just could not think of a reason. Maybe he really was growing paranoid.  
  
Red entering his field of vision made him look up. She was holing out her phone open to a news page she thought he would be interested in. ”Here. The online news articles have more information on it. I saved a few bookmarks.”  
  
He wasn’t sure how she knew, but he had realised by this point she was more perceptive than he perhaps afforded her credit for. He took the phone with a thanks and began scrolling through the headlines she’d bookmarked for him while she returned to her book on the mattresses.  
  
On the website she started him with, the headline stated: "_Sources state The Avengers were tracking wanted fugitive Brock Rumlow to Lagos.”_  
  
Brock Rumlow. His free hand tightened around nothing. He was a HYDRA infiltrator that had managed to go undercover at SHIELD for a time before it collapsed. Or rather before the Triskellion collapsed, and last Bucky had heard, collapsed on _him_. HYDRA had marked him dead but apparently he’d been serving his own little side-mission.  
  
He skimmed the article, picking out small details in both the biased writing and the pictures accompanying, some professional and some amateur from civilians. Overall, not much else to read. He scanned through her bookmarks and while smiling as he noticed a few online versions of book titles she’d saved, he saw another headline that caught his eye: "_Sokovia Accords released, proposing regulation and registration for superheroes. Where do you stand on the issue?_"  
  
_The Sokovia Accords?_ Bucky squinted at the newsprint.  
  
The paper went on to discuss how it proposed heroes and powered individuals to register themselves under government control. The Accords (though the paper claimed these weren’t confirmed details as of yet) required every enhanced individual to reveal their full name, give DNA samples, and be tested for how dangerous they were and force every person with innate powers to wear a tracking device at all times. And if an individual was thought too dangerous, they could be detained without trial.  
  
Bucky blinked at the paper slowly. _‘Powered individuals’? ‘DNA samples’? ‘Detained without trial’?_ Please tell him what the world just stepped in because it smelled damn funky. He completely forgot the Lagos incident as he reread the article and all the other bookmarks saved in the same area. Even if they were supposed to be just rumours they seemed pretty consistent across the websites he was skimming. Was identification really what the government wanted to impose and thought it wouldn’t backfire horrendously? He felt like he’d seen this happening somewhere before.  
  
He called Red’s name and she looked up, pressing a finger to where she stopped on the page. ”Did you read the article about the Accords?” He received a small nod. “What did you think?”  
  
Red scrunched her mouth to one side, eyes flicking away for a moment. ”I’d like to have the full thing in my hands before I talk. It sounds heavy.” She closed the cover of her bionics book but kept her finger inside marking the page. ”As for my thoughts on registration and government control? It’s a tricky subject. I have the feeling they wouldn’t hesitate to imprison you without trial if you were to put down your name.” Bucky huffed to himself at the understatement. “But I’d rather have read the full thing before forming my opinions on it. And I know I’d prefer you not detained.” She gave him a small smile.  
  
That he could agree with, at least, as he closed the website links with a bitten tongue.


	28. Chocolate

The next time Bucky heard about the accords was on the way back from the markets with Red as they passed a television repair shop. The monitors displayed in the window presented a news report dated 18th of May interviewing King T’Chaka of Wakanda, asking him to speak on the Sokovia Accords and what they would mean for the 117 countries that had agreed to sign it.  
  
_”Our people’s blood is spilled on foreign soil. Not only because of the actions of criminals but by the indifference of those who pledged to stop them. Victory at the expense of the innocent is no victory at all.”_  
  
After that, the newsfeed ran images of people on hospital beds being evacuated from the exploded building. The news reporter chose to lay the blame on a young enhanced named Wanda Maximoff, Bucky thought he’d read the name before, she was a new member of the Avengers following the Sokovia incident.  
  
Bucky stopped watching but only realised he wasn’t being followed until he was a good few paces away from the storefront. He trekked back up the street to see what she was staring at so intensely, watching as the reporter threw up an image of a particularly severe-looking man, introducing him as the Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross. They were telling the viewers how he was arranged to be meeting with the Avengers to discuss the Sokovia Accords properly. The Avengers were to be given three days to read through and sign or be forced to retire, and a United Nations conference held in Vienna the week following for the 117 countries accepting would officiate it.  
  
”You can’t just retire from that life,” Red mumbled out loud with incredulity as she watched the English subtitles run across the screen.  
  
The soldier nodded. The bookworm was more right than she realised.  
  
  
Bucky perhaps should have seen the next morning coming. It had been a while, and things had been going pretty well save for _someone’s _sudden appearance in the apartment, so it would only make sense that there was a bigger bump in the road just waiting around the corner to be tripped over. But this time it wasn’t Bucky’s.  
  
Red was awake beside him when he got up, earlier than usual judging by the light filtering in through the window and lack of clocks in the apartment, but she didn’t acknowledge him, trying to pretend she was still asleep. He’d rolled his eyes fondly, something about the younger generation needing more sleep and a comparison to vampires passing through his head as he shuffled over to the shower. When he returned freshly washed, she was still in the same position playing dead and he got started on breakfast - this time something with fruit because Red would need the sugar for the training he had planned while towel drying his hair.  
  
”Red, food’s almost out,” he called over his shoulder while cutting the last pieces of strawberry into cubes, but he failed to hear a response. “Red?”  
  
”Not hungry.” Her voice lacked any punch or enthusiasm.  
  
Bucky had a feeling of deja-vu at the words. ”You’ll need it. Today’s gonna be a long one.”  
  
A long pause as Bucky scraped the cut strawberries into the porcelain bowl decorated with a gingerbread man running from a bakery down a dreary lane. As soon as Red had seen it and smiled, he’d picked it up to buy it.  
  
”Do we have to today?” she asked, but it wasn’t a whine and it was barely loud enough to carry across the one-room apartment to his station in the kitchen.  
  
He put down the knife on the chopping board, glancing over the table to the little bundle on the bed. ”What’s wrong?” Maybe her shoulder had flared up again, it wasn’t impossible even after the treatment he’d given it but she hadn’t complained about it since yesterday morning.  
  
”Nothing.” Red was staring straight at the wall with her covers pulled up to her neck like a shield.  
  
Bucky set down the bowls on the table and looked at her. ”What’s the problem?” he asked. She didn’t answer, only turned her face into her pillow to hide from him. ”Red, if something’s the matter, you can say so. I won’t be mad.” He crouched down by her head, trying to gauge the mood. He had a feeling he knew but he wasn’t letting himself jump to conclusions.  
  
Red let out a sound and flipped onto her opposite side, away from him. “I’m just tired. Give me a minute. Please.”  
  
Bucky regarded her for a few seconds, trying to guess what was wrong, but doubted he would find out without looking at her expression, as that was what usually betrayed her. He let it go, not willing to push and start an argument, setting himself down in his chair and starting to eat.  
  
Red joined him about two minutes later, making her way over to the table like nothing happened. But the manner in which she ate, slowly and barely chewing, gave away she wasn’t feeling okay, even when trying to hide it behind her bedhead. She barely managed to make it halfway through her bowl before giving up, dropping her fork and standing up to clean her dish.  
  
Bucky finished his own, detailing how the day was to go and watching Red in his peripherals mull around the kitchen with a less-than 100% look about herself.  
  
”I’m gonna shower first,” she replied not like an option and grabbed fresh clothes, wandering to the shower without much else to say.  
  
Bucky left it to her and made himself busy straightening up the kitchen and making the beds, imagining she would be back after about twenty minutes - a time he’d somehow unknowingly internalised from her previous trips to the shower.  
  
Now, he wasn’t counting, but he knew she had been in that shower much longer than her normal shower routine should take, and when he went scouting for Red’s pocket watch and checked the time, he knew he was just.  
  
He knocked on the bathroom door, able to hear the shower on the other side running. ”Red?” he spoke her name loudly and heard a muffled sound in reply. “Red, it’s been an hour. Is everything okay?”  
  
Red looked up from her folded arms, running water obscuring her vision of the door a few metres away. Her butt had gone numb ten minutes ago but she had yet to be bothered to move from her curled up position underneath the spray.  
  
“Red, I’m worried,” Bucky continued, leaning on the door that had no lock. She didn’t give any discernable reply. “If I don’t hear a response in the next ten seconds, I’m assuming you’ve drowned and I’m coming to rescue you.”  
  
Red sighed, letting her head fall back against the wall of the shower and the water rain down on her face as if she were outside in the real rain like when she was little. Except there was a lot more mud then.  
  
“Ten,” he started the count. Red didn’t move an inch. “Nine.” Still nothing. “Eight.” She glanced at the blurry door out the corner of her eye with a long exhale. “Seven.” He really seemed content to count until zero like a mother waiting for a child to obey. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. ”Six.”  
  
Red breathed in deep, shaking her head and swallowing before looking at the door again. Another deep breath.  
  
”Five.”  
  
”I’m fine,” she said, but she could barely even hear it herself over the rushing water surrounding her.  
  
”Four.”  
  
”I’m fine! Not dead!” She called out louder when the panic of him coming in and seeing her naked curled up on the shower floor set in. Her heart went from being on snooze to beating too fast too quickly and she felt nauseous, leaning her head on the wall and trying not to puke.  
  
At least he’d stopped counting so she knew he heard her.  
  
”Is everything okay, doll?” was his next question through the door.  
  
No. “Yeah, just lost myself for a bit. I’ll be out in a minute!” she yelled back with faked confidence, stretching her legs out and feeling the ache from being bent to her chest ease out. She breathed in and out shakily, giving a sniff before gathering the strength to stand up and turn the shower off.  
  
Bucky looked up from the kitchen table when the door opened, watching as Red emerged towel-drying her hair. She looked better than when she went in. ”Good shower?” he asked carefully.  
  
”It’s therapeutic. I saved you the pain of hearing me trying to sing, no one needs to hear my caterwauling this early in the morning.” She gave a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, trying to laugh it off and distract Bucky from asking further questions.  
  
It worked but only because he knew she would slip straight back into this mornings’ rut if he did. ”You ready to practise?”  
  
No. “Sure.”  
  
It didn’t take long for Bucky to call it quits with the training. While Red was forcing enthusiasm and trying her best to keep up, her head just wasn’t in the game and if they continued, she would end up either hurting herself or letting Bucky hurt her because she wasn’t concentrating.  
  
He put his hands on his hips, shaking his head and catching his breath. ”I think I’m gonna call it a day.”  
  
”What? Why?” Red asked from down on the floor where he’d knocked her for the seventh time.  
  
”You’re not focused. We aren’t going to get anywhere like this,” he told her firmly.  
  
”I’m focused, I swear.” Her tone said she was desperate for him to believe her.  
  
He folded his arms. ”Red, don’t try lying to an ex-spy.”  
  
”I’m not lying! I’m fine.” She stood up quickly and felt that sudden wave of nausea again.  
  
Bucky only had to put a hand on her shoulder and apply gentle downward pressure to get her to sink to one knee and then to a sitting position with her legs crossed, looking at him the entire way down with an exhausted look in her eyes.  
  
He squeezed her shoulder. ”Take a breather.”  
  
”That’s all I’ve been doing for the past five months,” she mumbled at the floor, head dipping down.  
  
He squeezed again. ”Five minutes, sit there. I’m going to make a drink, do you want one?”  
  
She shook her head at the floor and he went to make himself a drink. When he returned, she didn’t look much better than when he’d left her but at least she wasn’t making attempts to lie anymore.  
  
He sat down cross-legged on his own bed, facing her. ”So, what do you wanna do instead?” he asked, taking a sip of his coffee.  
  
She looked at him, her expression confused.  
  
”Well, we aren’t training. So what do you wanna do today?” Bucky asked her, trying to think of a reason why she would be confused when he gave her a choice.  
  
”I uh…” she swallowed, her eyes darting down to the floor and hunching over a little in her sitting positon, arms crossing over her body. “I wanna bundle up in my blankets and sleep. I don’t wanna talk. Or eat. Or read. I wanna sleep and do nothing but listen to quiet for the rest of the day.”  
  
At first glance, it may be seen a classic case of Lazy Teenager, but Bucky knew Red better than that. He could hear the tone beneath the words, something desperate and vulnerable twisting just below the surface and trying its best to hide behind a whining front. She sounded distressed, irritated, but at the same time breathless and weak.  
  
Bucky kicked his boots off and onto the sofa in the corner before laying down comfortably beside Red.  
  
It took a moment but the girl watched him laying still long enough to squint suspiciously at him. ”What’re you doing?”  
  
”Getting some more sleep,” Bucky replied with his eyes closed. He could feel Red still looking at him with that confused stare. “Do you sleep with your eyes open now, Red?” he asked with a hint of a smile, eyes still shut.  
  
Red blinked slowly at him, expecting him to jump up and yell _“sike!”_ or some 1940’s-ish version of the same thing but he stayed quiet as if he was actually going to sleep. She observed him a little longer, the way the light coming through the window gave him a deceptively innocent look, before managing to peel her eyes away and laying down on her back. She shuffled around trying to find a comfortable position before softly letting her eyes flutter shut and relaxed into the mattress. Sleep found her quickly as she listened to Bucky’s slow breathing beside her.  
  
Bucky, awake beside her, considered the situation. He knew how she was feeling, at least in part, because he’d felt it himself. He’d been low. He was barely ever higher than low. Only recently had he ever felt this okay for such a long time, and it was thanks to her. So if she was down where he’d been before, he would do his best to try and bring her back up again. She deserved that much from him.  
  
His fingers brushed hers without his permission, but Red didn’t reject it, what almost-asleep energy she had left responding and just laying her fingers on top of his open palm. And that was enough for them both.  
  
  
Red awoke sometime later with a lighter head and a warmth in her left hand. Shifting a little with a gentle moan, her eyes blinked open looking down at her hand where another was connected to it. Following up the red-shirted arm, her eyes moved up to where Bucky was lying straight with his head propped on a pillow, his metal arm holding his newspaper open to read and looking more relaxed than she would imagine someone with so much going on inside their head could. Unless he was acting. She really hoped he wasn’t acting just for her sake, and somewhere inside she knew he wasn’t.  
  
She tried to say something, but could only produce a small noise of inquiry. It caught the supersoldier’s attention all the same and he turned his head, a small smile hidden at the corner of his mouth.  
  
”Good afternoon, Sleeping Beauty,” he said softly, and Red rolled onto her back, free hand coming up to rub her eyes.  
  
Bucky’s hand left her other one and Red immediately wanted it back, only just stopping herself reaching out to grab it back. It had been a while since she’d had someone she felt so comfortable with touching her she was just maybe the tiniest bit touch starved.  
  
Bucky pushed himself up to sit properly. ”Are you feeling better than earlier?”  
  
Red laid her arm over her eyes like there was something in front of her she didn’t want to see. “Yeah, a bit. Thank you.”  
  
Bucky chewed the inside of his cheek and glanced back into the kitchen before looking back down at the drowsy brunette. ”I bought candy bars if you want one.”  
  
Red now realised he’d been out while she slept, the newspaper suggested it but the candy bars were the clincher. She still couldn’t give him much of an answer outside of another half-assed moan.  
  
She heard Bucky stand, and with her arm still covering her eyes she listened to him shuffling around the kitchen but it wasn’t clear what he was doing until she felt him sit and then something sweet-smelling touching her bottom lip. She pulled her arm away with confusion and concern in her eyes but eased once she realised he was holding a piece of chocolate by her lips.  
  
“Open up,” he said with a gentle command, just gentle enough to still hold the instruction. She flicked her eyes down and while feeling like a toddler being fed by their mother, she opened her mouth obediently and he fed her, the chocolate sweet and smooth, only pulling back to break off another piece from the bar in his hand.  
  
Her eyes soft looking at his face with a slight smile. ”You’re feeding me?”  
  
”If it gets you to eat, I’ll do whatever it takes,” he told her with confidence like he didn’t see the strangeness in all of this. He bumped her lips with the chocolate and she ate the square that was offered.  
  
”Why?” She knew it was rude to talk with her mouth full but she did it anyway, not finding the energy to move her head off her pillow in any way to assist him.  
  
”You didn’t each much this morning, and because I want to. I want to take care of you,” Bucky replied gently, and Red found she didn’t have an argument for that. She wanted to give one, something about this being the wrong way around and how he shouldn’t waste his time on her issues, but it died on her before it became a cohesive thought.  
  
Bucky continued feeding her until every last bite was gone, sneaking himself a few squares while Red closed her eyes to fully appreciate the taste. “All done. Good girl.” He felt a bit stupid when the last part slipped out, but the small squirming reaction and sheepish scoff he got for it made him forget just as quickly. He filed it away for later. “Do you want another?”  
  
”I don’t want to get a sugar rush,” she answered and he nodded, tossing the wrapper away.  
  
As soon as he mpved, Red could feel herself sinking like the surface beneath her was all foam and no floor. She recognised it in a moment and hurriedly reached out and tried to grab onto something to keep her in the present and awake, but not even pressing on her bruises like normal worked this time. She felt the burning pain but it struggled to hold her in the same place.  
  
Bucky noticed her fingers on her bruises. “I bought some aloe at the store, too. It said its good for bruises.”  
  
Her hand fell away from her neck, trying not to make it seem suspicious. ”Maybe later.”  
  
Bucky assumed that meant it wasn’t going to happen. It didn’t surprise him that she was stubborn enough not to take it now, but the way it sounded like she never would? Unacceptable. ”Would you like me to do it?” he questioned with courage mustered from somewhere unknown.  
  
Red hummed a short sound and the corner of her mouth curved up. ”Just all over me this week, aren’t you James?”  
  
”What can I say? You’re one-of-a-kind, doll,” Bucky returned with a smart-assy smirk and just managed to stop himself giving a wink once it hit him what he’d said and to who. He blinked, feeling as if he’d embodied another person for a brief moment, and when images of himself flirting with pretty dames back in his own time filtered in it cleared up exactly what happened. He shook himself out of the swing bar and back to the present. “Sorry. That was… inappropriate,” he said, rolling up a sleeve.  
  
”I don’t mind it,” Red said watching him and shushing her silent question about why that action on anybody was strangely sensual. And she’d seen that look in his eyes when the memories passed through and heard how practised the words sounded. She knew what he’d felt. “It feels natural, like a reflex to you, right? Like with the waitress in that cafe.”  
  
Bucky paused in uncapping the bottle and stared down at her. He didn’t necessarily want to admit he had been but he was curious as to why she brought it up and so raised an eyebrow as he poured some of the gel onto his non-metal hand. ”I thought you didn’t speak Romanian,” he responded smartly, warming it up with his fingers.  
  
”Don’t have to. The looks said it all.”  
  
”You jealous, doll?”  
  
She cocked an eyebrow. ”Of what, exactly?”  
  
Ouch. Build him up, shoot him down, hey? The simple question killed his self-confidence like a shield to the head and the complete disinterest in her voice made him feel weird inside. Why would it, though? Did he _want _her to be jealous?  
  
He shook the thought off and knelt down beside her, and after a quick confirming nod that she wanted him to, he swept his hand along her bruises as carefully as possible with the aloe.  
  
Red didn’t wince much as he massaged it in gently and felt her relax underneath the weight. Bucky thought of the power he held, how he could just finish what _he _had started, a hand around her throat squeezing and snapping, but Red was allowing him, _trusting _him, to soothe the injuries he caused, and that kept him from thinking about it longer than a passing thought.  
  
”You do this for Steve, too?” she asked, looking up at him perfectly comfortably.  
  
It took him a second to understand what she meant and recall what he’d told her about him and Steve. He picked his next words carefully. “When he was… smaller, Steve was the human equivalent of “accident-prone”, whether it was a scuffle with bullies or trying to befriend feral alleycats behind the theatre or even just getting scraped up the sidewalk when he tripped over thin air. He had more bruises than skin some days so yeah, I helped try to fix him back up, even if sometimes it felt little more than pointless. Stubborn as gum stuck in someone’s hair, seriously.”  
  
Red smiled softly, watching the confidence that grew in his eyes as he told the memories he truly remembered without the help of his notebook. It was stunning. ”That’s nice,” she said, tilting her head a little.  
  
Bucky nodded and looked down at where his hand had stopped in the middle of his speech. When pulled his hand away, inadvertently inviting a cold rush of air to breeze over the gel, Red shivered with a muffled squeak. At the quizzical look he gave, she mumbled: ”that’s cold.” Acknowledging she wasn’t in any serious distress, Bucky had a moment of boldness and purposefully blew cold air onto her skin, making her squirm and push at his chest. “Nooooooo.” She pouted and twisted away, both hands coming out of the warm covers to shove the teasing supersoldier elsewhere as her legs kicked at the sheets.  
  
Bucky let himself fall back onto his bed (because if she wanted to really push him away, she would have had to try a lot harder than that weak-ass effort) and chuckled softly as he hit the mattress. He inclined his head towards the girl who was pouting deliberately at him and pulling up the covers over her chest and neck as if it would protect her any better than a chocolate fireguard. He couldn’t help but snort at the adorableness and he caught the smile Red tried to smother in response to his laughter. He saw the humour in her eyes shining bright, and something else mixed in too, but her face slowly falling a little reluctant as if she’d just remembered something unpleasant caused him to really look at her.  
  
Those innocent doe eyes, forest green glinting with gold in the late light of the day. Some of her hair was covering her face, a few strands caught on her lips, and Bucky felt if he embodied his old self again he would have reached out and brushed it out of the way, but as the person he was now, his hands remained by his sides. She brushed it away herself, fingers stopping just at the ends as she thought of something, before flicking her hair away and worrying the inside of her lip with her teeth.  
  
”James?”  
  
”Hm,” he hummed back watching her closely.  
  
She glanced away for a second before back to him with a subdued look of excitement. ”I wanna make cookies.”  
  
Bucky’s brow furrowed in question. “Cookies?”  
  
”Yeah. Chocolate chip. Or maybe muffins, still chocolate chip though.”  
  
”Red,” he called her name, and she hummed while sitting up. “You know that if something’s bothering you, you can always tell me, right?”  
  
She paused halfway to standing, twisting around and staring at him. Red’s confident eyes turned cloudy, and her body language curled up again just the slightest hint, ready to block something out.   
  
He thought quickly. “We don’t have any flour,” he excused, moving them on fast before she could overthink it.  
  
Bucky knew she knew he was bullshitting and why but she pretended she didn’t, standing up. ”Can we go get some? I memorised a recipe from my grandma and they are the best thing you will ever eat. Ever.”  
  
”Can’t we just get a pre-made mix?” he asked, pushing himself up and reaching for his boots.  
  
The look that crossed Red’s face was somewhere between betrayal and disbelief. ”Blasphemy,” she said, a hand on her chest like she’d been physically wounded but soon dropped as she flung on her coat and stepped into her boots.  
  
Bucky hurried to catch up, having to jog after her to catch her at the door by her wrist. She spun around faster than he expected and he nearly tripped over when taking a step back, but his hand remained on her wrist. ”Red,” he said, and while she looked up at his eyes with something unreadable, he completely forgot the words he’d had in his mind.  
  
Luckily it seemed she already knew. ”I know,” she replied softly. “Thank you for today. You don’t have to do all this for me.”  
  
”I wouldn’t just leave you in the way you were, I could see you were struggling. Plus you were running the water bill way too high for what this apartment charges,” he joked.  
  
She pulled her hand from him, scoffing and crossing her arms. ”Oh and here I thought you were just being nice by making sure I didn’t drown. Can you even drown in a shower?”  
  
”Yes.”  
  
Red’s eyes widened at the sudden confirmation as she was reminded just who she was talking to. But never one to deny her curiosity when it waved its hand, she carefully asked, ”Drown or be drowned?”  
  
”Would you really like to know that answer?” Bucky asked, and it wasn’t malicious but it had a hint of warning.  
  
She decided to heed that warning, reaching to and unlocking the door. ”I’ll make an educated guess.”  
  
She exited the apartment and Bucky followed. “For the best.”


	29. Starlight

“James.”  
  
Bucky shifted with a small sound as he was dragged out of sleep.  
  
“Jaaames.”  
  
He grunted huffily, rolling further onto his left side to try and block out the noise.  
  
“_James_.”  
  
He opened his eyes with a groan of disapproval at being woken up from his (for once) peaceful dreams. He opened his eyes to two legs in pyjama trousers and boots and followed them up to an excited brunette, face masked by the darkness of the apartment at the twilight hour. “Come look,” she whispered at him before disappearing somewhere to his left just as suddenly as she’d appeared to disturb him.  
  
Bucky considered telling her she could fuck off and go straight back to sleep for a brief moment, but now he was awake and he wasn’t going back to it anytime soon if Red wasn’t lying beside him. He had discovered he fell asleep much quicker and easier when she was beside him than when he just used to collapse from exhaustion which was both sweet and concerning. He groaned, brushing his hair from his face and standing up, shaking himself awake as his senses realised a door opened and closed, and trying to figure out where she’d gone. He looked at the front door but that was too far away for how close the noise had been, and there was only one other door in the apartment.  
  
The pitch-black sky above Red was littered with an array of sparkling stars, each one shining proudly in the otherwise dark canvas laid out like a watercolour picture. The glittering view stretched across the scope of the sky in a slow gradient from dark to light towards the horizon where lights from buildings and houses began and grew closer to the fire escape she stood on.   
  
The door behind her opened with a dull squeak and she felt Bucky’s footsteps on the fire escape as he joined her, soon a presence in her peripherals to the right.  
  
“Look,” she gestured upwards to the sky when he stayed silent and ever so mildly glaring at her with half-awake eyes.  
  
Bucky’s head tilted back as he looked up at the sky and beheld its beauty. He remained quiet, slowly blinking at the night sky and feeling the slight chill of the breeze through his thin shirt. His arms were half-covered by the rolled-up sleeves.  
  
The supersoldier took a moment to find his words. “You dragged me out here at god knows what time in the morning to look at the stars?” Blue eyes dragged over to green as Red peeled them away from the sight. The look in them at first was awe and wonder, but at Bucky’s question is began to slowly die and be replaced by regret. Bucky lightened his face, giving a smile. “It’s beautiful,” he said, and all the wonder previously in Red’s expression returned full force like the breeze of the city.  
  
She tilted her head back up to watch, hands resting on the railing by the wrists.  
  
Bucky looked out at the city, eyes trailing over all the buildings and thinking how different it all looked at night, it was like a completely separate world.  
  
_’Tween pavement and stars is the chimney sweep world~ _sung softly in his mind.  
  
Damn it, Red.  
  
“There’s an Observatory not far from here,” he remarked, thoughtfully.  
  
Red’s attention snapped to him. “Can we go?” She looked like a puppy waiting for a treat, and Bucky imagined if she had a tail it would be wagging right now.  
  
“I’ll think about it,” he responded.  
  
They both knew he meant yes.  
  
As the breeze swept through again and caused them both to shiver, a memory called out to him from the darkness of the night, illuminated by the glow of the stars.  
  
_A cool October night in Brooklyn. The streetlights were lit and the pitch-black sky above the city was scattered with shimmering stars.  
  
"Thought I'd find you here," he heard his former self say, watching him exit a house via the back door and look to a spindly blond laying on the grass outside. "You're going to catch a cold. Come inside. Or at least put on a sweater."  
  
"I'll be fine, Buck. Just a few more minutes." Steve refused as always as he laid on the slightly uneven grass of the tiny backyard. Fairy lights danced around the bushes and trees, illuminating the yard in a soft artificial glow.  
  
The old Bucky sighed, and the back door slid closed before soft footsteps drew near. Soon, an over-concerned Bucky stood to the right of the small frame spread flat on the grass. "I might as well keep you company," he sighed, laying down beside his friend.  
  
It was only a few minutes of quiet before he spoke up again. "Ok, so maybe the date didn't go so well," Bucky admitted.  
  
"She hated it. It was so awkward. I was so awkward. I… maybe I just don’t mix well with girls, Buck." Steve sighed, and Bucky quickly smothered the idea that threatened to push forth at the indirect implication. "Why do you always set me up on these dates?"   
  
"I just want you to be happy, bud," he replied truthfully.  
  
"You know what will make me happy."  
  
Bucky sighed. "Yes, as if I haven't noticed you wandering off towards an enlistment station every time I turn my back. Look, I know you wanna go into an infantry but lying on your enlistment forms is illegal. They'll find you and they’ll take you and I won’t be able to stop them."  
  
"Bucky, come on. You wanna get your orders, right? Why can’t I?"  
  
Bucky wasn’t looking forward to getting his orders. He was a perfect candidate for the 107th, and it terrified him, but he put on a brave face in front of his friend because that’s who he had to be in front of him. He would never tell Steve. He wanted Steve to see him as the strong person he thought he was, as the hero and the friend. "I know you want to be out there but you can always help from here. Please." It was a little less than a beg by now.  
  
"Why can't I be on the front lines?"  
  
**You can. I just wish you didn’t want to be,** he thought solemnly.  
  
Instead, he stubbornly let the argument go and stood up, tapping Steve’s shoulder to get him to stand. "Come on, it’s cold. And you've got Art School in the morning. You can’t paint on a canvas properly if you’re sneezing the whole time." _  
  
He returned to the present in his own time, Red silent as his side as she observed the early morning city life.  
  
“James,” Red’s voice called for him.  
  
“Hm.”  
  
“I haven’t seen you reach for your notebook recently,” she pointed out.  
  
He’d noticed that too. “Nothing worth noting has come up.”  
  
She doubted that considering the frozen look he’d had on his face for the last two minutes but didn’t bother to say so. “How many notebooks do you have?” she asked curiously.  
  
Bucky closed his eyes, trying to recall from all the months on the run. “Eight full, I’m on the ninth.” He reopened his eyes to a startled looking Red. But as soon as the shock wore off, that inquisitive expression he identified so well by now replaced it and he shook his head at what he knew she would ask. “I really don’t think you should read them.”  
  
“I read one,” she said, hopefully.  
  
“One, yeah. But the other seven? They only get worse from there. You’d run screaming if-“  
  
“No, I wouldn’t.”  
  
Bucky sighed through his nose. “You don’t know that.”  
  
“Neither do you,” she countered easily. “Look, I’ll prove it to you. Pick me out the worst book you have and I’ll read it. Or better yet, choose one at random so none of us knows what I’m seeing before I see it. I’ll still be here once I’m done.”  
  
Bucky couldn’t say the idea wasn’t completely off the table for him. Red seemed to be handling this all pretty well and… she was the first person in a long time that he would really trust with anything so personal and valuable to him. Even his past self wouldn’t have gone flaunting his notebooks to just anyone who asked, maybe Steve if he asked, but he couldn’t name another person, not even his ma.  
  
But when he remembered just a few hours before, further before they made a mess of baking cookies in the kitchen when Bucky (he didn’t admit it but they both knew) set the oven wrong, back to how this morning had started, he hesitated. “Maybe not so soon after yesterday.”  
  
Red looked unsure whether she wanted to argue or not, hesitation crossing her own features as she turned back towards the city and her head inclined slightly towards the platform they stood on. She remained quiet for a moment, and then she spoke, "I was overthinking when I woke up, that’s usually the reason days like today happened. Sometimes I have really good days, and sometimes I have really bad days, and sometimes I don't know which it is until it’s over. On those in-between days I just kind of… check out for a while, go on auto-pilot or try and sleep it off like earlier. It might not be the healthiest way to do it but its the most efficient for not bothering anyone else with the problem."  
  
Bucky leaned his body on the railing, giving her his full attention. ”Does this happen a lot?”  
  
”Not often. I don’t mean to burden you,” she rushed out the subtle apology.  
  
”With all you put up with from me, this is nothing compared. And you wouldn’t be a burden anyway,” he reassured her softly, watching the side of her face as she continued to stare slightly down, like she was ashamed of her words and thoughts. He considered her words carefully and openly.  
  
“What were you overthinking about?” He didn’t expect a response but couldn’t help be disappointed when he received none. So he asked something else, “You said you’ve been taking a breather for five months. You’ve been out here for five months alone?”  
  
She scrunched her face. “Well, no. I’ve been out here for three months alone. The last two I’ve spent with you.”  
  
“Still, three months is a long time on your own.”  
  
She looked down to her hands, fingers picking at each other as she chewed on her thoughts. “I needed some thinking time for myself,” she answered quietly with a dry swallow.  
  
“I know how that feels,” Bucky mumbled under his breath.  
  
”Better than anyone I know,” Red told him in truth, picking at her fingers again.  
  
Red hummed. ”You know, I read this book once that talked about soulmates. It focused on the idea that two people were attracted to one another like being pulled by two strings once they were within five metres of each other. It got me thinking.” Bucky cocked an eyebrow. “All someone would need to do to attract you is bring a giant magnet.” She rapped a knuckle on his metal arm twice with a smile.  
  
Bucky snorted and shook his head, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.  
  
”Let’s hope you don’t get into any accidents while we’re here and have to be driven to the hospital. MRI scans would be impossible.” she continued to joke and that time he really did give her a roll of his eyes in reply. She bit her lip before she questioned, “I’m guessing it’s not detachable.”  
  
”No.”  
  
A pause. ”Can I see it? Fully?”  
  
Bucky’s head snapped to her, and she looked ready to take a step back from him but something in his eyes must have softened the action. Maybe it was his thinking about when she’d walked in on him without a shirt post-shower, seeing the part of his body that switched between flesh and metal, the healed skin leading from man to weapon. He thought it made her uncomfortable and possibly disgusted, not embarrassed like he’d first assumed when she looked away. So why was she asking?  
  
”Why?” he inquired, incredulously.  
  
”I’m curious.” She shrugged.  
  
It seemed more than that, but it was the answer she gave him and the one he would settle for. Bucky took the edge of the sleeve and began rolling it up, only to understand the attachment was nearer the collarbone than the shirt would show so in a moment of “fuck it” he pulled the shirt over his head and laid it over the railing, his full body out on display. The caution he’d internalised about hiding his arm in public view flashed in his mind, but he batted it away once he considered the likeliness of someone being able to see them up on the fire escape.  
  
The arm was a sight to behold in Red’s opinion, peak engineering and mechanics work with all the little separate joints moving and clicking together to function as a workable appendage. His fingers curled around the railing just like a normal hand would with the different sections mimicking a skeleton, showing off the flexibility and strength as he flexed his fingers in a show for her. The silver chrome alloy glinted prettily in the moonlight, a faded red star looking as if it had been scrubbed at over and over in an attempt to remove it at the top of the shoulder. It was nothing like the bionics that her book included figures and diagrams of, not even anywhere close. It was as beautiful as it was deadly.  
  
“Can I, uh..?” When Red lifted her hand up to indicate she wanted to touch it, Bucky’s brain connected the dots. She hadn’t been disgusted, she’d been intrigued, and she’d been embarrassed that she’d been intrigued, probably because she didn’t think Bucky was comfortable with a murderous weapon attached to him which was a fair assumption, but the tightness in his chest relaxed as the realisation washed over him, and he was soon nodding his head to grant permission.  
  
As he’s said, he could feel but not like his human hand could, but when her fingers first brushed the metal of his fingers, they blenched up as if scolded and burned and Red pulled her hand away like the same had happened to her. He forced himself to relax and have her the nod to continue, which after a brief pause, she did. Gentle fingertips with all the strength of a newborn kitten danced up his hand and onto his lower arm. Slowly feeling out the dents and scratches on the surface of an otherwise perfectly well looked after arm, her fingers trailed up past his elbow and up to the faded star, lingering for a fleeting moment there and tracing the outline she could see in the moonlight.  
  
Then came the part he feared - when soft skin touched scarred skin. He closed his eyes and tightened his grip on the railing as he felt her touch become much more sensitive to his body, her fingertips trailing over the marred and pink skin healing the break between monster and machine. He didn’t want to look at her face, he didn’t want to imagine what expression of disgust and horror and god forbid pity she was pulling. But when he felt her full palm splay across the bridge of skin and metal, he had to open his eyes to look.  
  
Red’s eyes lingered on where her hand touched but flicked up to his a moment later. Like the touch suddenly turned electric, Bucky was hyperaware of everything that was happening, her hand a distinct warmth on his body and he felt his carefully regulated breathing stumble in its rhythm.  
  
Of course, Red wasn’t on the same wavelength he was. “Hey, if your arm is made out of a metal alloy, do you think fridge magnets would stick to it?”  
  
Bucky broke out of whatever trance he’d been pulled into and let his brain tell him what she’d said in full. He narrowed his eyes at her. ”If I wake up tomorrow morning covered in fridge magnets, I swear…”  
  
”You swear what? Whatcha gonna do?” she replied as she took her hand away, a cocky grin forming on her rosy lips.  
  
The mischief in her eyes sparkled brighter than the stars above them, and it made Bucky forget about the loss of her hand altogether. The look was playful, humourous, and his instant instinct was to match it. Something inside his mind called him to her mischief and grinning face, something… primal to rival her confidence and dance with her like animals circling one another in a game.  
  
He knocked the feeling to the back of his head as far as he could with an imaginary mallet. Now was not the time or the place or the person for that feeling to come up. He blamed it on his touch-starved nature and Red’s too curiously handsy one.  
  
He picked up his shirt and threaded his arms through it. ”Can we go back to bed now? Or are you going to drag me in your pj’s to go see something else you found exciting?”  
  
Red tried not to feel slightly disheartened when he ignored her question and put his shirt back on. At least last time he threatened to take away her pillow privileges.  
  
”No. That’s all I wanted to show you,” she said, turning herself around to head back through the fire escape door.  
  
Bucky huffed but it turned into a yawn, stretching his arms out above his head and squinting at the horizon that had begun to fade between blue and orange. Sunrise. Perfect.  
  
”Red.” Bucky caught her halfway inside the apartment and gestured for her to turn back towards the city.  
  
She did, confused at first, but when her eyes landed on the sun slowly inching its way up past the horizon line facing her, the door in her hand clicked back into place as she returned to Bucky’s side, staring with her mouth falling ajar ever so slightly.  
  
Bucky smirked at her reaction, him too facing towards the distant sun to watch it rise into the sky and bask the city in a gentle morning glow.  
  
Okay. Maybe it wasn’t so bad being dragged out of bed to see the stars that morning.


	30. Plums

_“How are they? Are they good? Give me six, thank you.”_

Standing at the market stalls alone in his veterans cap and casual jacket, Bucky bought food for lunch as Red lazed happily in bed. He’d realised they’d run out only when he started chopping the remaining strawberries and hopped out to buy more while Red remained in bed.  
  
Waiting for the plums to be bagged up, he was giving a brief glance around when something across the street caught his eye. A twenty-something vendor at a news-stand was watching him, eyes flicking between Bucky and a morning paper held in his hands. Bucky glanced away, figuring he might just be people watching, but when he looked back at the vendor the man was still watching him. He got that itchy feeling in his neck as the vendor stood up and suddenly ran from his kiosk. Plums forgotten, Bucky calmly approached the stall as inconspicuously as possible and picked up the paper to read.  
  
On the front page dated May 23rd, there were surveillance-photos of a man that looked suspiciously like Bucky spread across the page and the headline: **'Winter Soldier cautat pentru Bombardmentul din Viena'** running in bold just above it.  
  
Realising what was going to happen as soon as that man found the authorities, Bucky looked back in the direction of the apartment, one thought in his mind louder than any of the others. ”Red.”  
  
  
Back in the apartment, Red had gotten bored of laying around waiting for Bucky and so got up to shower and change. With half-dried hair, she sat at the table to read her bionics book but only got halfway into a new chapter when there was a rapid knock at the front door.  
  
Red’s instincts went on alert instantly. No one should be knocking on the door, they had no friends, no nosey neighbours, not even the landlord who lived on the top floor should be bothering them. They paid for the apartment remotely and Bucky hadn’t mentioned any guests coming over. So, the brunette stayed quiet at the table and listened for any other sounds to give away who it could be.  
  
There was only another knock, calm and easy this time. Then silence. Red narrowed her eyes at the door when she heard no footsteps walking away.  
  
The person knocked a third time and that’s when Red chose to stand, retrieve her pocketknife from her backpack and carefully approach the door. The apartment doors had no peepholes so she just had to take a breath and hope it was the girl scouts selling cookies and not someone incredibly dangerous looking for a fight.  
  
Turns out a mix of the two was standing there in the hallway.  
  
Captain Steven Grant Rogers in his full Captain America uniform complete with his shield stood at the door, smiling gently as Red’s eyes met his. “Buna dimineata, (good morning)” he greeted in Romanian with a polite nod.  
  
Red for a second couldn’t believe she was facing him, the real life Captain America. She assumed she was dreaming, but clutching the blade in her hand a little tighter and the pain that came from knicking herself accidentally with it told her otherwise. Steve Rogers was here, and Bucky Barnes was out. This could not mean good things.  
  
Clearing her mind, Red raised an eyebrow, leaning on the door but feeling a lot less calm than she looked. ”You can speak English, Captain. I’ll understand,” she said in a warm welcoming tone, still trying to figure out how in the hell America’s Defrosted Golden Boy was stood at their door like a loyal puppy waiting on the welcome mat.  
  
His smile seemed to relax a little more at the idea he could carry on the conversation in English and he nodded in reply. ”Sorry to bother you this morning, ma’am, but I’m looking for someone.”  
  
”Aren’t we all?” Red responded, her humour a natural defence against the unease.  
  
Steve had the proper manners to give a chuckle at the joke, at least. ”Yes, well, I have reason to believe he’s staying in this apartment with you.”  
  
Aaaaaaand there it was. Bomb dropped. Cover exploded. How the fuck did he know? They’d been extremely careful. It was probably her fault.  
  
She shook the panicked thoughts off. ”I live alone, Captain. Perhaps you should try the floor above.” She wanted Bucky here. She didn’t know whether she should be telling Steve he was here or not. Why wasn’t Bucky back yet? Where was he? How long did it take to buy some frickin’ plums?  
  
_Come on, James, I need my supersoldier in a shining baseball cap!_  
  
As Red stalled, the Captain heard a voice over his earpiece. _”Steve, is there someone else in the apartment?” _It was Sam on the roof covering the perimeter, listening in to their conversation.  
  
When Steve didn’t get the answer he wanted or needed from the woman, he reached into a pocket somewhere in that skintight suit and produced a photo, a rough fuzzy candid from a security camera somewhere outside the apartment with its focus aimed towards the front doors and showed it to her. ”Do you know this man? James Buchanan Barnes.” It was a picture of Bucky in his baseball cap and jacket, eyes obscured slightly by the cap brim.  
  
”No.”  
  
”Ma’am-”  
  
”Dolly. Dolly Tucker,” she introduced herself calmly, remembering her purse and ID just out of reach in her backpack.  
  
Steve flicked his eyes up and down the stairway behind him before chewing his lip and making the choice to lean a step closer, voice lowered. ”Miss Tucker, please. I need to find him. There are other people looking for him who are not going to be as nice as I am when they do.”  
  
_”Steve, I see German Special Forces approaching. You’ve got maybe five minutes if I try and stall them,” _Sam updated him.  
  
Red squinted her eyes at Steve, suspiciously.  
  
The Captain sighed and remained leant close. “There was a bombing in Vienna yesterday at the United Nations conference and the news is blaming him.”  
  
Red couldn’t stop herself jumping to defend Bucky. ”But that’s not true. He was here all yesterday.”  
  
”I know. And that’s why I need to find him first,” Rogers replied, growing desperate as he realised she’d told him he really was here. Finally, their cold leads were warming up. “Please. He’s my friend,” he implored her, urgently.  
  
Red recognising her mistake of revealing Bucky to be living with her opened the apartment door and bobbed her head towards the kitchen area. ”Get inside before someone sees you. You already look ready for a fight.”  
  
”If we aren’t careful there’ll be one,” Steve said as she shut the door behind him.  
  
Red sighed, resigned herself to her fate and walked back over to the kitchen table, closing her book. ”He’s out buying food. I didn’t wanna move out of bed so he went alone.”  
  
_”Heads up, Cap. German Special Forces approaching from the south.”_  
  
”Understood,” he replied to both.  
  
Red perked her head up. ”Who are you talking to?” she asked. Steve narrowed his eyes and tilted his head pretending not to know what she was talking about. “You have a tell,” she told him.  
  
Caught, he spoke aloud and obvious to Sam. ”Another friend.” He focused back on her. “There are people coming here to take him.”  
  
The apartment door handle rattled for a moment before Bucky walked into the room, pausing halfway in when he caught sight of the fellow soldier he once knew as well as himself. Once.  
  
Bucky didn’t blink and he didn’t speak, only ever so slowly closed the door behind him without breaking eye contact.  
  
The room held its breath.  
  
”Buck.” Steve was the first to break the silence, eyes flicking up and down Bucky’s frame and watching him warily for any signs he held a grudge from their last little encounter together. “Do you know me?”  
  
Bucky thought about it. ”You're Steve. You were my friend, way back when…”  
  
_”They've set the perimeter.”  
  
S_teve looked past Bucky towards the door and then back to him. _”_I know you're nervous. And you have plenty of reason to be.”  
  
”I wasn't in Vienna. I don't do that anymore,” Bucky told him.  
  
_”They're entering the building. Do you still have a civilian in there?”_  
  
Steve glanced to Red and then back at Bucky._ ”_Well, the people who think you did are coming here now. And they're not planning on taking you alive.”  
  
”That's smart. Good strategy.” Bucky began taking off his gloves and grabbed Red’s backpack off the floor, throwing it to her which she caught easily. “Red, go for the fire escape and don’t look back.”  
  
”Oh, come on James. We’ve been over this,” she whined.  
  
”_Go_,” his tone left zero room for argument, not this time, and the only reason she stalled for even a second was to grab her bionics book and coat before running out the fire escape door as he told her to do.  
  
_”They're on the roof. I'm compromised.”_  
  
”There’s a civilian coming out of the fire escape. Female. Make sure she isn’t hurt,” the Captain ordered, wondering about the connection she might have with Bucky past housing him but putting it to the back of his list of priorities. “This doesn't have to end in a fight, Buck.”

Bucky removed the glove covering his metal hand. “It always ends in a fight.”  
  
_”5 seconds. The girl is in sight, heading down the steps.”_  
  
Steve sighed. There just wasn’t enough time, like always. ”You pulled me from the river. Why?” he demanded.  
  
”I knew you,” Bucky replied.  
  
_”3 seconds!”_ Sam warned.  
  
”Thank you,” Steve said.  
  
_”Breach! Breach! Breach!”_  
  
A grenade suddenly came crashing through the window in the kitchen. Bucky kicked it to Steve, and the Captain smothered it with his shield, the explosion minimised to the floor.

From outside, a commanding soldier yelled: “Schieß die Tür!” (Shoot the door!)” and anothercop slammed the battering ram against the door.  
  
Bucky shielded himself with the mattress against the oncoming attack from the window and tossed the kitchen table into the way of the front door while cops swang in on cables.  
  
Steve yanked the rug from under a policeman sending him flying while Bucky hurled another into the wall. Steve put a hand on his shoulder. “Buck, stop!” Bucky ducked under the hand. “You're gonna kill someone.”  
  
Bucky slammed Steve down onto the floor and grabbed his backpack from underneath the kitchen chair ahead of him. “I'm not gonna kill anyone.” He tossed the backpack out of the window and Steve pulled him behind the shield to avoid sudden gunfire from the doorway. Bucky shoved Steve through the broken window, knocking another cop down to the ground.The Winter Soldier punched through the wall beside the door and lay into the cops waiting ready, punching and kicking his way out of the mess but fighting to run not fighting to kill._ Never unless it was an emergency, _he’d promised himself.  
  
Steve eventually reemerged because, oh yeah, his friend was probably being murdered or whatever and caught a knocked down soldier speaking into his radio. _“_Der Verdächtige ist ausgebrochen. Er ist am östlichen Treppenschacht (Suspect has broken containment! He's headed down the east stairwell!).” With a look of “really?” he grabbed the radio and crushed it in one hand before jumping down a level to help.  
  
Bucky tossed one of them over the railing and Steve caught him, stopping the cop from falling to his death down at least five flights of stairs.  
  
He looks at Bucky wearily. “Come on, man.”  
  
Bucky’s elbow broke someone’s nose behind him before his metal arm was snapping a bannister and swinging down on it, crashing into a corridor below and after taking a running start leapt off the balcony in a considerable jump. He stumbled as he landed onto the lower roof of the neighbouring building, finding his backpack and running.  
  
_”Steve, I lost sight of the girl heading into the city.” _Sam reported in.  
  
Steve kicked the last conscious cop down the stairwell, successfully knocking him out as his head collided with the wall to definitely give him a nasty headache tomorrow. ”As long as she’s clear. Sam, southwest drop.” Steve backed up a little before running out the same way Bucky disappeared towards the balcony.  
  
_”Roger that. Who was she?”_  
  
Steve ran towards the balcony, ready to leap. ”I don’t know.”  
  
  
Red’s booted feet hit the solid ground as she jumped off the last step of the fire escape. Without stopping, she sprinted across the road just narrowly missing a swerving car that was definitely breaking the speed limit and didn’t give a damn. She reached the other side and ducked under an empty bus station shelter, panting heavily and leaning back against the glass wall with a hand on her chest trying to catch her breath. Man, she really needed to do more exercise.  
  
Chancing a look back up at the apartment, she could tell even from this many floors down it was a total mess. There were men on zip wires crashing through the kitchen window, smoke exploding out onto the fire escape from haphazard grenades and Red thought she saw even the Captain being tossed around a little. Well, it was either him or someone was waving an American flag out of the window which, to be honest, would not even be the strangest thing she’d witnessed today and she hadn’t even had breakfast yet.  
  
Her stomach growled at the thought of her missed breakfast but she shushed it easily, glad she was alone at the bus stop to lower her internal embarrassment over the fact. This was not the time to be thinking about food when Bucky was running for his life, _again,_ and she was doing nothing to help except for the same thing - running. Just like she always did whenever things got too tough, like a little frightened _coward_.  
  
The word tasted bitter on her tongue. Red winced and looked away from something that wasn’t there, but now was not the time to be focusing on herself. She could deal with her own problems later, right now Bucky was in trouble and she needed to do something about it. But… what could she do about it? She wasn’t in the best position to be making calls on this play or whatever, she didn’t even know where they went if they went anywhere at all.  
  
She paused in her thought and her eyes trailed back up to the apartment which now seemed suspiciously quiet.  
  
Sure, he’d told her to run, but he didn’t tell her in which direction other than the fire escape, did he?  
  
Red felt a smile twitch at her mouth, even when she could imagine Bucky rilling up his newspaper and swatting her over the head, but that only made her want to go ahead with the plan more. She’d made a promise to him, out loud or no. Bucky deserved a friend. He deserved more than a friend but that was all she could give him right now.  
  
Standing up properly, mind made up, she stared up at the apartment in defiant hope with a new goal in her mind. She started making her way back towards the apartment.  
  
_You’re not getting rid of me that easily._  
  
  
Steve swerved the 4x4 through the rubble of the quickly crashing overpass, leaping out and running ahead of it as it came to a rolling stop, tacking the Black Panther and pulling him away from Bucky, tossing him to the side as armed police arrived to surround them, guns aimed.  
  
The sound of thrusters jetting through the air at lightning speed increased loudly before War Machine was landing steadily between the three frienemies with his hands raised up in warning.  
  
”Stand down, now.” The suit made his voice a little robotic but the message was clear.  
  
Bucky stood beside Steve, eyes flicking around to assess the danger. He was tired but his adrenaline was pumping from their short run through the city.  
  
Steve, regretfully, put his shield on his back and held up his hands in surrender, watching as police moved in and forced Bucky to the ground who took it without fighting.  
  
_”_Congratulations, Cap. You're a criminal.” Rhodes told him with a sense of moral pride.  
  
The Black Panther after being threatened by police moving in around him carefully removed his helmet as a cop pulled Steve’s arms behind his back, and the Panther revealed himself to be Prince T’Challa.  
  
”Your highness,” Rhodes was not without his manners regardless of how curious he was that T’Challa was here chasing after Bucky so soon after the bombing in Vienna.  
  
But he didn’t have much time to think on it as while the two supersoldiers were being pulled away to a detaining van, a civilian being walked by a police officer were heading towards him and rapping gently on his shoulder, making him jump inside the suit and almost hit the two with a repulsor blast.  
  
”Colonel,” the officer greeted. “This woman claims to have information on Mr Barnes, sir.”  
  
”Well, take her statement, then,” Rhodes responded, not moving his eyes from watching the supersoldiers being taken away.  
  
”She said her apartment was the one we found Barnes in, Colonel,” the officer continued which was the thing to grab his attention, head of the suit turning ominously towards them.  
  
”Is that true?” he asked the woman with brunette hair and doe green eyes, looking nervous but like she was fighting it.  
  
”Yes,” she confirmed, glancing over to the supersoldiers. Once she did, Bucky’s eyes suddenly locked onto her frame and widened in recognition a second before he was fixed into a special containment crate and driven away.  
  
”Can you be more specific, ma’am?” Rhodes questioned.  
  
”She refused to tell me anything else,” the offer beside them butted in, having been the one who found her back in Bucky’s apartment after waking up from unconsciousness. She’d quickly admitted her knowledge and asked to be taken to whoever was in charge, and now she was here.  
  
”I can handle this, sir,” Rhodes gave him the silent order to back off, and after a second of hesitation and staring at the impassive face of the War Machine suit, the officer quickly went to join the soldiers creating a barrier around the crash site. Rhodes cleared his throat. “You were saying?”  
  
She folded her arms and shrugged them, nonchalantly. ”Well, as you can imagine I wasn’t very happy with the way you all came bursting into my apartment today without even the courtesy to knock first,” she spat, frustratedly. “You and your men or whoever they are just broke in and destroyed the place. Unbelievable and _rude_, I might add. Tell me who’s going to fix the damage to my home.” She took a step closer and Rhodes, even after a lifetime of dealing with people raising his voice at him and exerting authority over his own rank, felt himself shrink back slightly in his suit.  
  
”Well, we believed there was a suspected terrorist in your apartment. What was Mr Barnes doing there?” he questioned her, but received no response as she looked away, tight-lipped and clearly unimpressed with his response. “Holding information from legal authorities is an offence,” he warned her, knowing how to play this game.  
  
”As is breaking and entering and I saw no one with a warrant,” she retorted just as easily. He couldn’t deny that. Sighing out a sharp breath, she continued, “Now, are you going to tell me who is going to afford me compensation for this, or would you like me to put in a formal complaint about you all to the government? And so soon after this Accords business, I doubt you want a complaint about your behaviour.”  
  
_Thank you, mother, for letting me grow up around the most no-bullshit attitude I have ever seen, _Red thought gratefully as she recalled the few phonecalls she’d heard when her mother had gotten particularly mad at a company employee. Except there was usually a lot more ‘dignified’ swearing involved.  
  
”I apologise about the damage to your apartment but if you want to get these things fixed, you’ll have to cooperate too. If you have information, please relay it,” Rhodes reminded the girl and she tried to come up with a viable and believable excuse she could bullshit for long enough to get where she needed to be. Wouldn’t be the first time she’d done so, she was practically a seasoned pro by now.  
  
”He’s been staying with me as a paying tenant for a while,” the woman revealed falsely.  
  
”How long?”  
  
”A month or so. Perhaps I should write this down,” she mumbled, looking around like she looking for someone with a notepad and pen.  
  
”Would you care to come with me and give an official statement in person? We’re taking these prisoners in and having a witness such as yourself to question in person would be very helpful.” Rhodes attempted to calmly negotiate because she did have a point about the Accords and she seemed like the type of woman who was definitely not bluffing.  
  
The woman pretended to think it over before accepting the offer with a nod. ”I suppose I can agree to that. Just as long as someone can offer me a decent explanation and solution as to my now unlivable apartment.”  
  
”Right this way, ma’am,” Rhodes gestured for her to follow him to the cars still parked around the perimeter and led her into a jeep, giving an order to the driver and guiding her inside before setting a flight path back for himself. The jeeps started up and rolled out together, everyone heading back to the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre, unaware of the utter chaos they were about to unleash on themselves.


	31. Trigger

At Joint Counter Terrorist Centre an hour later, Bucky’s containment cell was being carried away by a forklift as Steve with Sam and T’Challa exited an SUV parked in the loading bay. There were armed guards standing all around supervising this and that, with three guards standing behind who the three were escorted over to - Agent 13 or Sharon Carter and Everett Ross, Ross much happier than they were to greet them.  
  
”What's gonna happen to him?” Steve asked as he watched his friend being carted away into another part of the facility.  
  
”Same thing that ought to happen to you. Psychological evaluation and extradition,” Everett Ross replied, smiling sweetly.  
  
”This is Everett Ross, Deputy Task Force Commander,” Agent 13 introduced them with a side-eye towards the greying man.  
  
”What about our lawyer?”  
  
” ”Lawyer”. That's funny. See their weapons are placed in lockup. Oh, we'll write you a receipt.” He ordered two nearby guards who walked past with the Falcon Wings and Captain America’s shield.  
  
”I better not look out the window and see anybody flying around in that.” Sam narrowed his eyes at the men carting away his wings on a trolley.  
  
As they were lead onto a skywalk, Steve looked back, catching Bucky’s eye a few seconds before a heavy door slid closed, separating them both once again.  
  
”You'll be provided with an office instead of a cell. Now, do me a favour, stay in it?” Ross continued as they were walked towards the offices.  
  
”I don't intend on going anywhere,” T’Challa reassured him with a glance back in Bucky’s direction.  
  
Natasha Romanoff caught up with the group, slipping in between the platoon of guards escorting the three through the building. “For the record, this is what making things worse looks like,” she told him.  
  
”He's alive,” Steve said. _Which is more than could be said if I left him alone,_ Steve didn’t say as they rounded the corner to the main control and conference rooms, monitors surveying the streets lit up around them with glass boardrooms lined up ready for meetings.  
  
T’Challa was escorted to a room a short distance away with most of the guards and Everett, and the remaining group soon spotted a frustrated Tony Stark talking on the phone with a very angry Secretary Ross, suit rumpled and tie hanging loose around his neck from how he’d been fidgeting with it.  
  
”No. Romania was not Accords-sanctioned. And Colonel Rhodes is supervising cleanup.”  
  
”Try not to break anything while we fix this,” Natasha mumbled to Steve before disappearing to Tony’s side.  
  
”Consequences? You bet there'll be consequences,” Tony was still on the phone as they reached him, aiming his eyes towards Steve as he mentioned consequences. “Obviously you can quote me on that 'cause I just said it. Anything else? Thank you, sir.” He put the phone away.  
  
”'Consequences'?” Steve repeated.  
  
”Secretary Ross wants you both prosecuted. Had to give him something.”  
  
”I'm not getting that shield back, am I?” Steve asked sighing as Tony and Natasha began walking away.  
  
”Technically, it's the government's property. Wings, too.”  
  
”That's cold.” Sam said.  
  
”Warmer than jail,” Tony offered back with a slim smile.  
  
Rhodes appeared from where Steve and Sam had entered, now out of his War Machine suit, jogging past them and across the room towards Stark. ”Tony.”   
  
Tony looked confused at the sudden appearance of his friend considering what he’d told the Secretary of Defense. ”What are you doing here?”  
  
”I have a woman by the doors who has information about Barnes. She said she owns the apartment that we broke into,” he relayed to him, Steve and Sam watching them from the side.  
  
”Well, what’s she doing here?” Stark asked with a shrug.  
  
”She isn’t cooperating until she can get someone who will offer to clean up the mess we made getting to Barnes.”  
  
”Does this woman have a name?” Tony pulled out his phone and pulled up a search screen.  
  
”Dolly Tucker according to her ID. Agent Ross is already running a check on her,” Rhodes explained.  
  
Tony searched the name and found her online ID in an instant, squinting at it and humming. ”I have something to deal with first. Bring her up to the meeting rooms before the Secretary of State gets to her, I doubt she’d want to talk to anyone after him.” He slid his phone away again and called over to the Captain. “Steve?” The man perked his head up at his name. “I got something to show you.”  
  
  
Red was lead through the ‘reception area’ of the building, a few SUV‘s driving past her into the main building, the path that she and War Machine followed. Rhodes had stepped out of his suit now and as they reached the main floor instructed: “Sit tight here, I’ll bring someone up to talk to you, okay?”. Red had nodded and Rhodes skipped off to find whoever it was he needed.  
  
Of course, Red had just a few concerns about waiting in a room full of people she didn’t know, workers and armed guards who were giving her suspicious looks and rightfully so she supposed. So she just attempted to embody her mother again and put on the face of someone who knew she was supposed to be here and if you didn’t agree _you _were the one in the wrong.   
  
While thinking and planning out her next line of bluffing, something entering her peripherals broke her concentration. It was a large trolley labelled “Confiscated Assets” and right on top of the mountain of things, one of which she thought she recognised as Steve’s shield, was Bucky’s backpack, obviously stolen from him while being detained. She chewed her lip as the cart moved towards a door that she knew she would not get away with following the man pushing the trolley through, and so in a moment of boldness, she walked quickly over to the man and tapped his shoulder.  
  
”Excuse me, do you know where the bathroom is?” she asked, leaning against the trolley innocently.  
  
The man seemed startled by her appearance but shook it off easily. “Yes, the closest women’s on this floor is that way. There’s a blue sign just above it.” He turned away from her to point in an east direction for two seconds.  
  
Red smiled and nodded once he was looking back at her. “Thank you,” she thanked him and the man bowed his head, soon pushing the trolley onwards and not taking any notice of the select item missing from the pile.  
  
Red looked at the backpack clutched in her hands. She had promised Bucky she’d stop stealing, but was it really stealing if it was already stolen in the first place? She reasoned it wasn’t, and after following the man’s directions to the bathroom, she relieved herself because she was there anyway and shoved Bucky’s backpack inside her own, exiting the bathroom without drawing attention.  
  
  
After a failed meeting with Tony, Steve adamant about not signing the Accords regardless of how Stark tried to persuade him, the remaining guards guided him into a separate meeting room together with Agent 13 and Sam Wilson already there, just next door to T’Challa and Natasha.  
  
Sharon slid over a piece of paper to the two. “The receipt for your gear.”  
  
Sam scooped it up and raised an eyebrow. ”'Bird costume'? Come on.”

Sharon shrugged. **“**I didn't write it.”  
  
The room was left quiet as the three waited for Bucky’s analysis to be over. Sharon, taking pity on the Captain, reached to the intercom in the centre of the meeting table and pushed a button that stopped the restriction on the audio from Bucky's evaluation, the feed showing up on the meeting room monitor above them.  
  
The door to the meeting room was opened behind them, and the trio watches as Colonel Rhodes escorted a brunette woman inside. ”Wait here, please,” he told her before shutting the door and walking without another word.  
  
Red breathed out a sigh of relief as he disappeared, leaning against the glass wall and rubbing her face. She could only bullshit her way through this so far, she was quickly realising.  
  
”Miss Tucker?” Steve asked, recognising her from the apartment.  
  
Red pulled her head out of her hands. ”Hey,” she greeted like she wasn’t having a mini mental breakdown just a second ago.  
  
”What are you doing here?” he questioned.  
  
”You broke into my apartment, remember?” Red continued with her excuse, smiling easily at him, before her attention was taken by the screen just above them, her eyes catching sight of a conscious and alive Bucky, her chest filling with that newfound hope again. “He’s okay.”  
  
Steve nodded. ”For now.”  
  
_”I'm not here to judge you. I just want to ask you a few questions. Do you know where you are, Mr Barnes?” _The interrogator continued to question his target but Bucky wasn’t talking. _“I can't help you if you don't talk to me, Mr Barnes.”  
  
”My name is James. Or Bucky,”_ the supersoldier replied, weakly.

Red glanced around the room and moved forward to perch herself on the edge of the table, spotting blurry photographs from the news of the man who bombed the congress in Vienna laid out on the table. She pulled one over to her, squinting at the face of who appeared to be Bucky Barnes but she knew couldn’t possibly be.  
  
”Why would the Task Force release this photo, to begin with?” Steve leaned over to see.  
  
”Get the word out, involve as many eyes as we can?” Sharon offered as an explanation.  
  
”Right. It's a good way to flush a guy out of hiding. Set off a bomb, get your picture taken. Get seven billion people looking for the Winter Soldier.”  
  
”You're saying someone framed him to find him.”  
  
”Steve, we looked for the guy for two years and found nothing,” Sam replied, sitting at the table.  
  
”We didn't bomb the UN. That turns a lot of heads,” the Captain replied.  
  
”Yeah, but that doesn't guarantee that whoever framed him would get him.”  
  
”It guarantees that _you _would, though,” Red spoke up, looking up from the photos with a feeling of understanding dawning on her.

Steve frowned in thought at her wise input, looking around.** “**Yeah,” he agreed and then turned his full attention to Red. “Miss Tucker. How long has Bucky been living with you?”  
  
Red dropped the photo. ”A couple of months. Though I’ve been living with him, not him with me.”  
  
”Where did you meet?” Sam inquired.  
  
Red froze up, red flags flying at the thought of saying something she may later regret, letting something slip that would only hurt Bucky rather than help him.  
  
Her feelings must have been obvious on her face because Steve stepped in. ”It’s okay. You can tell them,” he assured her in a soft voice, the same one he’d used to get into her (or rather Bucky’s apparently) apartment when they first met.  
  
”You’ll forgive me for not wanting to believe you,” Red replied, shifting backwards and away from him warily.  
  
”Please. This is for Bucky. No one in this room is against him,” Steve held his hands up, pacifyingly, to try and relax her.  
  
”I mean he did try to kill us both,” Wilson reasoned with Rogers a little bitterly.  
  
”Me too,” Red revealed. When the others looked at her startled, she stumbled over her next words, “I mean _he _didn’t but h- Well, he did but that was when he was… not himself, I mean. It’s complicated.”  
  
Steve took a seat beside her, him now sitting in a chair and her resting on the table. ”How much do you know about him?”  
  
The girl didn’t answer for a stretch, eyes flicking between the screen displaying Bucky and Steve watching her with eyes reminiscent of a puppy. Eventually persuaded, she told them, ”Probably more than I should. You spend months with someone, even someone as guarded as him, you pick up on things. We met a while back somewhere I can’t pronounce the name of, completely off the grid, practically no man’s land. The kind of place you would specifically go to disappear forever.”  
  
”How did you get here?” Sharon asked.  
  
”We hopped a train together to Berlin and stayed at a safehouse he had there for a few weeks. That was until we had to leave due to circumstances and ended up here at the apartment. A month later you found us.”  
  
Steve cocked an eyebrow at the word “circumstances”, her now the second person to use that word today and it not meaning its usual meaning.   
  
”There was a bomb waiting for us behind the door one day. He talked me through disarming it and I still have my arms so I count that as a win.” She gave him a thumbs up and a smile, and the corner of Steve’s mouth curled up at the little gesture. “Right now, though, I’m waiting to be interrogated because Mr Rhodes thinks I have information. I mean I do, but the actual reason why is because I’m here for Bucky, same as you.”  
  
”You bluffed your way into a secure facility to chase down the Winter Soldier.” Sam was a slight bit impressed at the girl.  
  
”I bluffed my way into a secure facility to chase down _James_. Because he’s my friend, and because I made a promise to him that I wasn’t going to run away screaming when things got scary. He deserves better than that.”  
  
Steve picked up the photo from the table, staring at it again before glancing up at her and opening his mouth to ask another thing, but her attention was already taken by the screen in the corner.  
  
_”Tell me, Bucky. You've seen a great deal, haven't you?  
  
”I don't want to talk about it.”  
  
”You fear that if you open your mouth, the horrors might never stop. Don't worry.”_ The interrogator’s phone alerted him to a message. He tapped the screen to read_ 'status: package delivered' _and nodded, turning back to James. _“We only have to talk about one.”_  
  
All of a sudden, a burst of energy engulfed the bunker, a power surge that caused all the monitors and cameras to shut down and the lights to shut off, shrouding everyone inside in darkness.   
  
Steve, Sam, and Red stood up from the table and looked to Sharon. ”Sub-level 5, east wing,” she informed them and Steve and Sam headed for the door. “I’ll look after Miss Tucker.”  
  
”I can look after myself,” Red said but it went unheard as alarms began blaring throughout the facility.

**  
**Steve and Sam bolted for the sub-level, as soon as they arrived outside the chamber finding many agents slumped on the floor, all out cold.   
  
”Help me,” a weak voice from beside Bucky’s empty container whimpered out. “Help.”  
  
Steve approached the voice finding Helmut Zemo inside the chamber. “Get up.” He grabbed Zemo by his jacket and shoved him against the wall. “Who are you? What do you want?  
  
Zemo only smiled. ”To see an empire fall.”  
  
As Sam entered behind Steve, Bucky’s arm swung his fist from a dark corner which smashed through the wall as Sam ducked just in time. After exchanging a few blows back and forth, Bucky with his eyes glazed over with something that wasn’t him grabbed Sam by the jaw and tossed him at the open holding chamber.   
  
Steve jumped into the fight and landed a punch which Bucky barely felt, kicking Steve out of the chamber and throwing punch after punch until they reached the elevator doors. Steve ducked just in time for the metal arm to dent the doors but wasn’t so lucky the second time, Bucky's fist sending him tumbling into the darkened elevator shaft.  
  
_“Der Ostflügel ist kompromittiert. Ich wiederhole: Der Ostflügel ist kompromittiert. (The east wing is compromised. I repeat: the east wing is compromised.)”_ was announced over the tannoy, alarms still blinking and blaring.  
  
Sam turned over onto his side, spotting a blurry Zemo standing by the elevator. “Hey.”

Zemo bolted quickly but was soon replaced by a girl in a navy coat and large backpack, kneeling down by his side. ”Mr Wilson?” Red looked over Sam as he tried pulling himself off the floor, eventually accepting a hand from the young woman. “Mr Wilson, are you okay?” Red asked, and Sam didn’t have a mind to ask how she got here. Red may have been told to stay upstairs with Sharon but hey, she was good at giving people the slip.  
  
”Did you see where he went?” Sam asked groaning as he was pulled to his feet, gut among other body parts aching.  
  
”Who?”  
  
”The guy who interrogated Bucky. Where’d he go?” Sam looked around for Steve, too unconscious not having seen him being sent down the elevator.  
  
”That way.” Red pointed right of the elevator helpfully.  
  
Sam nodded. ”Come on.” He wasn’t going to leave her down there with a bunch of unconscious guards and so guided her out of the chamber and back towards the stairs, running towards the front entrance along with any workers inside the facility who weren’t armed guards.   
  
The blur of people running past them made it difficult to spot Zemo, and when they reached outdoors, Red nearly tripped over a jacket thrown down on the floor, one she recognised as the same one Zemo had been wearing.  
  
She picked it up and tapping Sam on the should who was spinning around trying to spot the imposter, handed it over. He grasped it and looked at the logo printed on the breast. “Damn it,” he grunted before looking up and around again. “Stay here.”  
  
”Absolutely not,” Red refused, crossing her arms and standing her ground even with the evacuating workers rushing past her onto the streets. Sam looked ready to bolt but she caught him before he could. “Try to ditch me and trust me I’ll find you regardless.”  
  
He didn’t look happy with the lack of choice he was given but he figured it wasn’t the worst thing he’d faced today if the sore muscles and lack of wings were to be considered. And he was even less happy once he spotted a helicopter in the sky crashing down only a few feet away by the outside of the building away from civilians. ”Stick close to me,” he ordered and Red heeded it, the two gunning it for the helicopter crashing into the water feature running around the facility and spotting two supersoldiers, one conscious one not, pulling out of the water and onto dry land with heaving breaths. “Steve!”  
  
The two ran over as Steve made sure Bucky wasn’t choking on water and was still breathing. The blond knelt over his friend, panting and tired. ”He’s out. We need to get someplace safe before they find us. After that, they’ll never let him out of their sight again.”  
  
”Safehouse?” Sam suggested.  
  
”They’ll be searching everywhere we know.”  
  
”Well, how about we go somewhere we don’t know, then?”  
  
”Like where? What wouldn’t attract attention?”  
  
As the boys bickered, Red scanned around for anyone that might be looking at them, and as her eyes searched the road not too far away, she did a double-take to a van driving past, the crude outline of a white rabbit printed on the side along with an equally crude food company name. Watching the van drive down the street and seeing the tree mural printed on the back doors, looking similar to the trees she saw surrounding the park, she had a spark of inspiration as she realised what direction the van was heading.  
  
”What about a warehouse?” she cut off Sam and Steve’s discussion quickly, and they looked at her to explain. “On the drive up here, there was an abandoned warehouse near the local park - an old metalworking plant or something. I saw signs outside for its closure. No one would go looking in there, right?”  
  
Steve and Sam shared a look between each other before nodding. ”Car,” Sam said, standing up and taking a look around for an abandoned vehicle they could commandeer. When one was spotted, Steve took Bucky’s arm and wrapped it around his neck, and with quite a bit of effort on his side lifted Bucky up and began moving him towards it as Sam broke the window and hotwired the engine.  
  
Red followed behind quickly. ”Is it yours?”  
  
”No.”  
  
”You’re gonna steal it?” she asked, disbelieving.  
  
”We’re borrowing.” Steve corrected as they reached the car. Sam opened the backdoor and Steve as carefully as possible dropped the unconscious Bucky into it, shuffling him up now that there were three other people that needed to sit in the car too.  
  
”Never thought I’d see the day Captain America stole a car.” Red chucked still a little disbelieving and crossed her arms at the idea.  
  
Steve pulled his upper body back out of the car and smiled at her. ”Don’t go telling anyone.” He put a finger on his lips.  
  
Red chuckled and gave him a two-fingered salute. ”Aye, aye, Captain.”  
  
Steve tried not to roll his eyes, giving a quick glance around before back to Red. ”Steve. And that’s Sam.”  
  
”Red,” she introduced herself properly.  
  
”Nice name.”  
  
”Thanks. James picked it for me.”   
  
Steve nodded like he understood and paused once he realised he didn’t.   
  
Red saw the confusion and shook her head. “I’ll explain later, lets just Grand Theft Auto this thing and get the hell out of here before He Who Should Not Be Left Unsupervised wakes up.”


	32. Car

The last thing Bucky remembers as he comes to is breaking out of his crate. The doctor had his book, he’d said the ten words, and all of a sudden Bucky’s self-control was thrown out of the same window as his sanity and The Winter Soldier took over. His mind scrambled his thoughts, his control disconnected with his body, he simply was no longer himself. But as he regained control over himself, he groaned and hissed as a numbing pain spread through his mind like a liquid at an angle, starting slowly but growing heavier as he felt more and more of his body responding to his movements.   
  
His ass was sitting on something hard and the toes of his shoes touched the floor. He was slumped forward over something and as he had the idea of stretching out what pains his body now had from straining too long in one position, he realised his left arm was incapacitated. Peeling open his eyes with a noise of confusion, he blinked away his blurry vision and turned his head to the metal arm clamped securely in a huge industrial vice. He attempted to shift it, only to test the strength of the large metal object but he wasn’t budging it, not in the groggy and painful state he was in.  
  
“Hey, Cap! Red!” Someone’s loud voice echoing through the room made him wince and duck his head, eyes screwing shut as if he could block out the noise that way.   
  
But then there were footsteps approaching and he looked up to see Steve, Sam, and Red watching him from the entrance to the room with extreme caution. He couldn’t blame them. The room was silent as anything, but Bucky felt as if he could hear a helicopter in the very far distance somewhere.  
  
”Steve,” he croaked out at the blond, wetting his lips tiredly.  
  
”Which Bucky am I talking to?” the Captain replied, keeping a distance same as his two companions.  
  
Bucky barely hesitated. ”Your mom's name was Sarah. You used to wear newspapers in your shoes.” He chuckled softly at the recollection, that had been one of the first things he’d remembered about his friend.  
  
”Can't read that in a museum,” Steve confirmed.  
  
”Just like that, we're supposed to be cool?” Sam looked dubiously between them, just slightly annoyed at having had his ass handed to him twice by the same person Steve was still sure was redeemable, regardless of how much or little control he had over his actions at either time.  
  
”What did I do?”  
  
”Enough.”  
  
Bucky ducked his head again. ”Oh, God, I knew this would happen. Everything HYDRA put inside me is still there. All he had to do was say the goddamn words.”  
  
”Who was he?”  
  
”I don't know,” he said unhelpfully.  
  
Steve sighed, trying to remain patient and calm but they were on a schedule. ”People are dead. The bombing, the setup. The doctor did all that just to get 10 minutes with you. I need you to do better than "I don't know".”  
  
Bucky tilted his head, trying to think. ”He wanted to know about Siberia. Where I was kept. He wanted to know exactly where.”  
  
”The Siberia Facility? The one operated by HYDRA and served as the main compound of the Winter Soldier Program?” Red spoke up for the first time in the conversation, everyone else nearly forgetting she was standing there.  
  
”How could you know that?” Bucky asked.  
  
Red raised her right hand, and only now did it register with Bucky that she was holding something. But not just something, she was holding a notebook. ”You were out for a while.” When he looked closer, he saw her holding a pretty old one with part of the corner ripped off, and he instantly knew exactly which one it was.  
  
“Oh god.” His head fell into his hand. He wanted to hide, ashamed of himself. He never wanted Red to see him like this, to see what real damage he could do. He barely felt he deserved to be looked at by her anymore. “You said you wanted to read the worst one. Well, that’s the worst one. And you read it.”  
  
But despite all that, Red still reached out to him, taking a step closer with a voice filled with understanding. ”James…”  
  
”No! Don’t!” Bucky threw up his free arm, his raised voice echoing loudly off the walls. She stopped on command. “Don’t come any closer. I don’t want- I don’t wanna hurt you.” He curled up to the machine holding him captive, almost afraid it would let him go and he would suddenly rush her, even if the Winter Soldier wasn’t currently here with them.  
  
”James…” It was the same caring and compassionate voice he was so used to hearing, and when he peeked up from his curled up ball of protectiveness, he saw her making small steps towards him, eyeing him warily. “It’s okay,” she reassured him as if reassuring a scared little animal after running away from its prey, the adrenaline pumping fast in his veins same as her. She held up her hands, crouching just a few metres away from him. “James.”  
  
”Doll,” he replied, broken and afraid.  
  
She shuffled closer, until she was barely a few breaths from him, before cautiously reaching a hand out towards him. ”James.”  
  
He flinched back. ”No. Please.”  
  
She shook her head, arm still up and stretched towards him. ”I’m not afraid.” she said, and her fingertips touched his shoulder with the gentlest of pressures.  
  
He expected to flinch again when she touched him, but instead, he felt his body go lax under her hand. A sense of relief filled him, a long-buried piece of his soul that she’d managed to persuade to the surface in these last few months showing itself, his vulnerability, and he felt like he could cry.   
  
”How can you stand to be here?” he asked, voice shaking as her hand reached further and further up his shoulder to his neck, and then to cup his cheek.  
  
The part no one talks about when it comes to mind control is some small part of you is still awake, watching. It’s like being a passenger in a car, a _backseat _passenger with your mouth gagged - you struggle to try and control the car but you lose because you can’t reach the wheel. And you’re sat there watching as the driver does everything you don’t want them to, and you can scream and thrash and cry until you bleed but you can’t stop them. You can’t stop them, and its hell, because as the end of the day you feel just as responsible for their actions as you would if they were yours.  
  
”I’m not going anywhere, James. I told you I wasn’t gonna run and I meant it.” she responded, handling his stubbly cheek like it was made of glass already with a crack in it.   
  
”Please,” he begged.  
  
”Please, what?” she asked.  
  
Red gave him a long look that felt like it bore straight into his eyes and down to his chest, he felt like he’d stood in glue. It was like she wasn’t just looking at him but _into _him as if she could recognise every little piece of him, every little bit that was broken or newly repaired, everything he tried to hide away from the world and lock in a cage with a glaring sign _“not safe for anyone”_, and he’d never felt more open and exposed in front of anybody - even if he’s stripped stark naked in front of her right then, he would have felt more confident about himself than he did under that gaze.  
  
”I can’t…” He swallowed, losing his train of thought and settling on another. “Walk away. Please. Because I can’t.”   
  
Red gave him a smile, one of those he’d occasionally caught her with when she thought he wasn’t looking - a true piece of genuine happiness that usually she hid away from everyone. ”It’s not gonna happen, James,” she promised him, thumb tracing gently over his cheekbone.  
  
He wanted to save that moment forever, as the world around them practically melted away. No Steve, no Sam, no Zemo, no Accords, no Soldier, no HYDRA. Just him and Red - two lost souls in the dark finding comfort from the torment of painful pasts in each other.  
  
Red’s head turning to her own shoulder broke his little fantasy to see her free hand not holding his cheek picking at her coat sleeve where its rip used to be. ”Are you seriously picking at the threads on your sleeve, Red? After I sewed it for you?” he accused softly with a slight giggle.  
  
She bit her lip. "Maybe. Threads are like strands of hope, you know. They may seem small by themselves but gather enough of them together and eventually, you'll get a rope."   
  
He smiled. ”Its the return of the Wise-Woman.”  
  
”If I was wise, we wouldn’t be in this whole mess, would we?” she said, eyes falling down to the floor and the grip on his cheek lost to rest on his shoulder.  
  
”How is any of this your fault?” He was baffled at the idea she could possibly be blaming herself for any of this mess. Her lack of response only filled him with confusion even further. “How are you even here?”  
  
”She snuck into the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre building for you, man.” Sam reminded the two that they weren’t the only ones in the room by being louder than both of them combined.  
  
Bucky looked away from Sam and back to Red, a little shocked by the idea.  
  
She nodded. ”I’m not going anywhere. And I’m done running away from my own life.” She sounded like she was telling herself that as well as the three boys surrounding her, and on that thought and reminder they weren’t alone, she pulled back her hands but remained crouched in front of the supersoldier. “Now, Siberia, why would uh… this guy need to know about that lab? You wrote most of the notes in that section in Russian and I can’t read Russian.”  
  
Bucky sighed, sitting straighter. ”Because I'm not the only Winter Soldier.”  
  
Bucky proceeded to tell them about the experimentation and serum a group of select HYDRA soldiers were selected to take and the effects that ended up taking hold of their minds and bodies. It was messy, brutal, and above all deadly to anyone who got in the way.   
  
While he was telling the story, Red and Steve worked to free his arm from the vice and get him to sit on the floor instead.  
  
”Who were they?” Steve asked.  
  
”Their most elite death squad. More kills than anyone in HYDRA history. And that was before the serum.”  
  
”Did they turn out like you?” Red asked.  
  
”Worse.”  
  
”The doctor, could he control them?”  
  
Bucky considered his experience. ”Enough.”  
  
”Said he wanted to see an empire fall,” Steve repeated the words.  
  
”With these guys, he could do it. They speak 30 languages, can hide in plain sight, infiltrate, assassinate, destabilize, They can take a whole country down in one night. You'd never see them coming.”  
  
Sam pulled Steve to the side to talk. “This would have been a lot easier a week ago,” he mumbled.  
  
“If we call Tony-”  
  
”No, he won't believe us.”  
  
Steve nodded his head. ”Even if he did…”  
  
”Who knows if the Accords would let him help.”  
  
The blond sighed, looking back at Bucky and Red just looking at each other, both sat together on the floor. His heartbeat sped a little faster but he ignored it. ”We're on our own.”  
  
Sam hummed, his view differing. ”Maybe not. I know a guy.” He too turned around to look at the supersoldier and brunette sitting close. ”What do we do about her?”  
  
Steve hadn’t thought of that until now, and he had to admit this caused complications. She wasn’t a soldier, she wasn’t in this for a fight, she was just following Bucky. He just hoped he could think of a way to make sure she could keep doing that.   
  
”Red.” he called out and the girl looked up along with Bucky. “Now I’m not gonna ask you to involve yourself more than you already have-”  
  
”Of course not, because you never ask anyone for help when fighting, Steve. Didn’t forget that one.” Bucky chuckled softly and Red smiled in turn.  
  
”Yes, there’s the chance that this will end up in a fight. We can’t take you with us but we also can’t leave you here.”  
  
”Well, the apartment is out of the question for obvious reasons. And I don’t think using my ID anywhere will be a good idea.” Red pointed out, and at the inquiring looks continued to explain, “I had to show them something legit to be let into the building. I’m sure once someone looks up Dolly Tucker’s related family and sees Lance Tucker’s profile, they’ll figure out I’m more than just a pissed off apartment owner.”  
  
”Can’t you use your real one?” Sam shrugged.  
  
Red chewed her lip. ”Well it was in my purse and we both know I when I lost that.” She eyed Bucky and he nodded. She let out a long sigh. “Yeah, I’ll figure it out. I’ll use the real one.”  
  
”You don’t have to-”  
  
”No, it’s… it’s fine, James. It was inevitable, come sooner or later anyway.” She brushed off his concern easily. It was a truth she knew she had to face no matter how much she felt more like Red than _her _now.  
  
”If you told them your cover identity anyway and they realise you escaped with us, they could be looking for you just by facial recognition. It might not be safe either way.” Sam added on.  
  
”I need to make a phone call.” Steve announced but looked a little lost to start. Sam shook his head when he turned to him.  
  
”I have mine.” Red pulled out hers and handed it over, and Steve although he noticed it didn’t say anything about the lock screen picture of her and Bucky in baseball caps, instead dialling a number and disappearing into another room for a few long minutes of awkward silence and shy glances between the three left alone. Luckily he came back and handed back the phone before anything could get too weird. “Come on. We need to move.”  
  
A few hours later the four found themselves under an overpass just behind another car. Steve stepped out of the drivers seat, Sam sat in the passenger seat and Bucky and Red riding in the back together. Sam’s seat was leant a little further back than Steve’s.  
  
”Not sure you understand the concept of a getaway car.” Sharon, the driver of the other car, was clearly judging the 1965 Volkswagen Beetle they were all crammed into.  
  
”It's low profile.” Steve defended the choice -or lack thereof they’d had trying to hide while hotwiring the nearest vehicle that wasn’t the one they’d driven to the abandoned metalworks.  
  
”Good, because this stuff tends to draw a crowd.” Sharon opened the trunk of her car, revealing Steve's and Sam's gear in the back.  
  
Inside the car, Bucky was sat uncomfortably behind Sam. ”Can you move your seat up?”  
  
”No.” Sam didn’t move an inch, staring forward.  
  
”I owe you again.” Steve said, nodding.  
  
”Keeping a list.” Sharon joked, smiling sweetly at him.  
  
Bucky, legs cramping up because he was a 5’9 supersoldier in the back of a Beetle, moved up the backseat and closer to Red while trying not to crush the girl against her side of the car. ”Sorry,” he apologised when their legs knocked.  
  
”Don’t let him crush you back there.” Sam chuckled over his shoulder.  
  
”Don’t worry. I’ll probably choke on the testosterone first,” she replied, smiling.  
  
”You know, he kinda tried to kill me.” Sharon glanced at Bucky through the car windscreen.  
  
”Sorry. I'll put it on the list, too. They're going to come looking for you,” Steve reminded her.  
  
She nodded. ”I know.” And then she leaned in for a kiss.  
  
Steve almost stumbled back and onto his ass with how fast he pulled away from her approach. ”Uh…” he said, quickly playing it off when she looked at him, confused.  
  
She coughed, clearing her throat. ”I’m sorry.”  
  
”No, its-”  
  
”I mean, I thought that we-”  
  
”Well, it’s not really- I mean I appreciate-”  
  
”I just assumed since-”  
  
”I don’t feel that way about you-”  
  
”I can’t watch. That’s so awkwaaaard.” Red sunk down in her seat, hands covering her face but opening her fingers Vulcan Salute style to peek if the cringe was gone yet.  
  
”He’s never been good with girls,” Bucky said trying not to smile and Sam facepalmed in the front seat.  
  
Red looked at him, hands still covering her face. ”As opposed to?”  
  
Bucky didn’t reply and Red squinted suspiciously.   
  
Steve, once he’d stopped blabbering, tried moving them on. ”Thank you, Sharon.”  
  
Sharon, now saddened an embarrassed with a flush in her cheeks at the rejection, didn’t meet his eyes. ”Where’s the girl?”  
  
Steve looked back to the car. ”Red.” He waved at her to exit, and after a glance to Bucky, she did as asked, coming to stand between him and Agent 13. “Sharon’s agreed to look after you until we get back.”  
  
”Oh.” This was news to her. She looked at Sharon, fingers pulling at her sleeves, fidgetingly. “Are you alright with that?”  
  
”They’ll be looking for me too. Might as well stick together.” She nodded, still not looking at Steve. Sharon glanced at her watch and nodded to the car. “We should go.” She headed for the driver’s side without another word.  
  
”Steve.” Red caught Steve before he could sneak away back to his car for hours of teasing from his friends. She led him over to a quieter bit where the others wouldn’t overhear, even with stupid supersoldier hearing. “Not that I think I really need to tell you this but… keep him safe?” she asked him and Steve’s face of concern quickly melted into a smile of understanding and he promised he wouldn’t. “And yourself. Don’t go jumping on any grenades, alright?” She folded her arms with a knowing look.  
  
”Yes ma’am.” He saluted to her, sweetly.  
  
She rolled her eyes. ”Go. And you better come back.”  
  
”You can’t give a Captain orders.” He folded his arms at her.  
  
”I can if he’s had maybe six official days of training in his whole life and basically went around punching things until he was good at it,” she told him before stepping into Sharon’s car and shutting the door before he could produce an indignant reply.


	33. Line

Saying that staying with Sharon for two days was different from staying with Bucky for a couple of months was like saying a pen was different from a sword. A redundant statement. Not that Sharon was unfriendly by any stretch, in fact for someone who didn’t know Red all that well other than she was the girl to follow James Buchanan Barnes into a secure government facility because she was his friend, she was pretty welcoming. And that weirded Red out. She wasn’t used to people who’d just met her being so nice, Sam and Steve excluded because of extenuating circumstances, but tried not to let it show whenever Sharon tried to strike up some small talk or asked about her breakfast preferences over pancakes or waffles.   
  
Waffles, definitely. With strawberries and syrup. Sometimes with ice-cream, but not at breakfast.  
  
It was a completely different change of pace that she was used to, and the safehouse they were currently hiding in had a TV, unlike Bucky’s, so they safely watched the news channels together for any stories about either the death or capture of the supersoldiers and friends but all they received were reports of Steve Rogers being missing and Bucky Barnes on the loose. At least for the first day.   
  
On the second day came a special report from Congress. It revoked all previous accusations towards Bucky Barnes about the Vienna bombing (rightfully so, Red had cheered) on account of newly surfaced information about a Helmut Zemo (who Sharon pointed out was the “doctor” Bucky had seen) but he was still being searched for, same as Steve and other “rogue” heroes, on account of the Accords still being a thing. Oh well, at least the time at the safehouse gave Red more time for reading, although it wasn’t any of her or Bucky’s books she’d been taken with recently.  
  
On the morning of the third day, there was a knock at the front door. After Sharon drew her gun taped under the kitchen counter and Red pulled out her knife, Sharon approached the door and carefully checked outside. Once she found it was only Steve and Bucky at the door, she’d relaxed and let them inside.  
  
”So, a Captain can take orders, it seems.” Red smiled softly as the two walked in, obviously battered and bruised up together.  
  
Steve chuckled breathlessly, holding Bucky up with one arm as the elder supersoldier stood on shaky legs, still tired from sleeping on the way back in the jet. ”Safe and sound, ma’am. Mostly.”   
  
”I have icepacks.” Sharon said, disappearing into the kitchen as Steve and Bucky moved towards the couch, Steve settling Bucky down aching on the sofa but remained standing himself.  
  
Sharon returned a moment later with icepacks, water glasses, and max strength painkillers for both of them. Steve put his to his cheek whereas Bucky’s remained on his left side, and that’s when Red officially noticed and had a mild short-circuiting issue in her head as she realised Bucky’s metal arm was no longer there. Literally no longer there, there was just a stump covered in a loose bandage with bits of wire and misshapen metal poking through.  
  
Red leaned against the wall across from them and Sharon gestured to the TV beside her. ”So, Bucky’s name’s cleared from the United Nations conference bombing. You’re both still being looked for, though,” the Agent informed them. “The arrest of the rest of your team made the news, too. It said they were being incarcerated yesterday.”  
  
”Problem is where they are,” Steve said, gritting his teeth as the icepack cooled down his burning face.  
  
The room fell into quiet contemplation.  
  
”What about the Raft?” Red suggested, disrupting the quiet. All eyes turned to her in confused question. “It’s an underwater prison created for the detaining and incarcerating enhanced individuals. Makes sense they’d be put there, right, if Wanda Maximoff is involved?”  
  
Steve’s brow drew together. ”How do you know that?”  
  
”It was on page 283 of the Accords,” she answered.  
  
”And how do you know _that_?” Sharon questioned.  
  
Red bit her lip but crumbled under the weight of the three stares aimed at her. ”Ok, first, I know I promised I would stop stealing but…” Red reached for her backpack, pulling out a thick bound book of blue and white, the words _“SOKOVIA ACCORDS - Framework for the Registration and Deployment of Enhanced Individuals“_printed in bold on the cover. “…I may have stolen one of the Accords books from the Centre when James was going Terminator. I did say I would like to have the full thing in my hands to read,” she excused quickly at the unimpressed look Bucky was giving her.  
  
After a horribly long ten-second stretch of silence where Red was seriously considering whether or not to jump out of the window, Steve spoke up. ”Does it say where the Raft is?”  
  
Red thumbed the book open, flicking forward a jump before a few extra pages and running her finger down the lines before finding the specific paragraph. ”Here.” She turned the book around and handed it over, finger tapping the page.  
  
Steve skimmed the paragraph, jaw working as he considered his next plan of action. He sighed after a few moments and shook his head.   
  
Sharon peeked over his shoulder, reading along and pulling out her phone. ”Well, those aren’t exactly coordinates, but its a start. Give me a few minutes.” She disappeared off again.   
  
Red couldn’t help but feel as if Sharon was still embarrassed about what had happened at the overpass with the way she was in and out in Steve’s presence. Steve, on the other hand, didn’t seem bothered by it at all.  
  
In the silence that stretched on as Steve continued to flick through the Accords, Red took more notice of Bucky holding the ice pack to his side, and in turn, her attention turned to the giant missing limb in the room. ”Your arm,” she mumbled, nodding to it.  
  
Bucky glanced at it before putting on a brave face and smiling. ”At least I don’t have to worry about shattering glasses by not concentrating anymore.”  
  
Red could appreciate what he was attempting to do and went along with lightening the mood, hoping it would help him look less like he’d been hit by a speeding jet. ”Your massages are gonna suck now.” She scrunched her face as if imagining it. And okay maybe she was, but only because Bucky was one of the first people in years she’d been comfortable with touching her in such a way. Or really in touching her in general.  
  
”Who says you’re getting more? That was a one-off, doll.” He scoffed, looking away.  
  
”Didn’t seem like a one-off for Steve.” She crossed her arms.  
  
”What wasn’t a one-off for Steve?” Steve pulled his head out of the book and back into the conversation at hand at the mention of his name.  
  
”Massages,” Red helpfully informed him when Bucky gave her a look telling her specifically not to.  
  
When Steve squinted confused at why that was being brought up, Bucky had to spill. ”She hurt her shoulder one morning and I helped. I also told her about when I used to do it for you.”  
  
”For your circulation,” she added with a sweet smile.  
  
Steve was silent for a good few seconds as he laid the open Accords book down on the arm of the sofa his friend occupied, head bowed and clearing his throat. ”Jesus, Buck. Of all the things you could remember…” Steve pressed his palms into his eyes, mumbling indistinctly to himself after trailing off, but the light flush appearing on his cheeks filled in the blanks.  
  
”I mean he also remembers patching you up after fights with aloe and bandages when you were “more bruises than skin” so massages really aren’t that weird in retrospect.” Red continued, well aware of what she was doing and not giving seven shades of shit. Steve remained how he was, hands on his eyes and head tilted back as he winced, thoroughly embarrassed. “I think you’re blushing, Captain.” Red couldn’t help pointing it out.  
  
”I got a location on the Raft.” Sharon returned holding her phone to the scene of Red trying her hardest not to giggle and Steve having pulled his hands away to give Bucky a look somewhere between “don’t say a word” and “_please _don’t say a word”. Agent 13 looked suspiciously between all three and didn’t mention how pink Steve looked in the face. “Everything okay?” she asked.  
  
”Yeah. Where?” Steve ignored his voice cracking and looked at the address texted to Sharon’s phone. “That shouldn’t be too hard to get to if we can use the jet again. Who’s up for a field trip?”  
  
No one raised their hand.  
  
”Okay, I’ll take this one,” Steve said after waiting a decent amount of time for anyone to volunteer. “Red, would you prefer to stay and look after He Who Should Not Be Left Unsupervised?”  
  
Bucky furrowed his brow at the nickname he’d apparently been given at some point and turned it into a raised eyebrow aimed in the brunette’s direction who was pointedly avoiding his eyes.  
  
Fucking Steve. “I suppose,” Red agreed, folded her arms. She’d never been on a plane or helicopter before, anyway. It wouldn’t be a good time to get in a confined space in the air only to suddenly find out she got airsick.  
  
  
It took them another day to plan their attack on the Raft and to send Steve on the jet to bring everyone back, for which time Sharon was an understanding host and Red and Bucky tried their best to stay out of the way considering what happened last time the Agent and supersoldier met. Bucky slept on the floor and Red continued to sleep on the sofa like she had the last couple of days even when Sharon offered them the guest rooms. They stuck close but not like they were glued to each other.  
  
When Steve returned, mission successful and with a friend in tow, they all gathered in the living room (minus Sharon sulking elsewhere in the house) in front of the TV advertising a STARK cleanup of all the messes from the Accords and the debate on the officiation of them.  
  
”Clint’s back at the farm, Scott’s gone home, Sam’s here-”  
  
”Yo.”  
  
”-and Wanda has disappeared to hide out with Vision together.” Steve rattled off the list and pulled out a high-tech looking communicator from his pocket. “All that’s left now is wait until T’Challa contacts us.” He set the communicator down on the coffee table.  
  
Red looked confused and Bucky explained, ”He’s offered to house us all in Wakanda after he’s officially inducted as King. He said they might be able to fix whatever’s going on in my head.  
  
”All as in..?” Red gestured to everyone in the room in a circle including herself.  
  
”You don’t have to come with us if you don’t want to. Wakanda isn’t exactly somewhere you can jump on a train to get to.” Steve tried not to seem like he was dragging her even further into this mess than she was already.   
  
Little late for that now. In fact, it was officially “a little too late” when Bucky went chasing after Red to return her book the day they met.  
  
”I’ll stay with you.” Red replied, looking to Bucky.  
  
”You sure?” he asked, thinking the same as Steve but knowing a little better. They were past the point of going back now no matter what she did from now on.  
  
She smiled and shrugged. ”Its an adventure, right? That’s what I came out here for.”  
  
It might have fooled the other two, but when that second of eye contact passed between Bucky and Red, they both knew she was bluffing the shit out of that smile.   
  
”That’s settled, then.” Steve wrapped the conversation up and put the communicator back in his pocket.  
  
The problem with wrapping up a conversation like that is you have to have another conversation at the ready or you fall into an awkward silence. And since Steve was Captain America and not Captain Small Talk, no conversation was prepared, so Red, Steve, Bucky, and Sam were all left in silence glancing between each other unsure of what to do next.  
  
Sam cleared his throat, leaning against the open doorway with folded arms. ”So… what shall we do in the meantime?”  
  
  
_Stumbling out of the Siberian Facility with a childhood friend missing a limb after giving up his shield following a fight with an old best friend was not something Steve expected he’d do when he woke up that morning of the Lagos mission. It wasn’t something he expected he’d do ever, but here he was, pulling Bucky towards the jet, equally tired but pushing on so they could get back home and rest. His lip was bleeding, his chest was hurting, Zemo was gone, but he had Bucky. That was all that mattered.  
  
Tony had wanted to see Steve’s dark side. This was it. He couldn’t lose Bucky again, and this was how far he was willing to go for him._  
  
_”Captain.”  
  
Steve spun around, nearly dropping Bucky in the process, at the voice that called his name. He tensed up as his eyes locked on the Black Panther just a few steps away. ”Your majesty.” He bowed his head regardless of how he was readying himself for another round. Bucky seemed to perk up his head at the voice too.  
  
”T’Challa, please. I’m not here to fight.” T’Challa removed his Black Panther suit helmet and held it under his arm. His claws retracted into his suit and he stood as non-threateningly as possible. “Zemo has been apprehended, ready to face justice back in prison. I understand now what he has done.”  
  
Steve relaxed but Bucky didn’t at the words.  
  
T’Challa wasn’t done, addressing Bucky specifically. "James Barnes, I believed you to be responsible for my father's murder, but I now know his death was the result of Zemo's machinations - an effort to let vengeance consume the Avengers to destroy them." "It was you and Captain America who led me to uncover this truth. And for that, I wanted to offer you my assistance. The mental programming you were forced to endure, transforming you into a HYDRA assassin - I may know of someone in Wakanda who can assist in purging your mind of it."_

_Bucky felt stunned at the speech, the feel the same as if he’d frozen in the snowy tundra all of a sudden and woken up again in another time. He glanced as Steve to see if he was hearing the same thing he was before back to the soon-to-be King and nodding his head. "I- I don't know what to say. Thank you."  
  
T’Challa gave a gentle and very much royal smile to them both, holding his helmet in both hands. ”If you’ll excuse me, I have a lot to attend to in Wakanda after the death of my father. Becoming King is not something anyone should take lightly, and certainly not I. I will have the labs prepared for your arrival and contact you once they are finished. Take this.” He produced a small communication device from his belt and held it out to Rogers to take. “As soon as everything is set, I will contact you and bring you to my home. Please, in the meantime, keep yourselves safe.”  
  
”Thank you.” Steve took it with a thanks and the Black Panther returned his helmet to his suit before disappearing off towards his own jet and a tied up Zemo. Steve stood a little straighter, adjusting how Bucky’s only arm laid over his shoulder and returning them to the path towards their jet. “Come on. It’s a long way back to Sharon’s place,” he said and started walking. Bucky was quiet the whole way until they reached the back door, opening as Steve clicked the key on his belt. “You still with me, Buck?” he asked his friend as they stumbled their way inside.  
  
Bucky just chuckled and smirked, heart beating sorely but happily in his chest. ”You know I’m with you till the end of the line, pal.”_


	34. Cards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: Things in the timeline get wibbly-wobbly here according to the online Wikia of the films so if the time jumps between events seem weird I’m just going off apparent canon dates. Throwing up the words “Present Day” on a screen is a fanfic writers worst nightmare, guys.

”I’m under.”  
  
”I’m right on it.”  
  
”Liar.”  
  
”I’m not lying.”  
  
”You are so lying.”  
  
Red tried to keep her eyes on the words in front of her as not too far away Steve and Sam bickered over cards. They’d been playing some variation of 21 for some time while Bucky napped on the sofa beside Red, sitting on the floor with Bucky just behind.   
  
“He’s bluffing,” she mumbled to herself, flicking the page.  
  
”Who is?” Red hadn’t realised Bucky was awake but apparently he had been for a while if he sounded that lucid already. Red didn’t reply, trying to immerse herself in the story and not watching two of the world’s greatest heroes fighting over an old pack of playing cards stored in a drawer in the kitchen for who knows how many years. “Red, you can’t say “he’s bluffing” in a room full of guys, alright?” Bucky turned his head and opened his eyes to her, body remaining lax where he reclined against the couch.  
  
She rested a finger between the book pages, her old favourite with the girl and the wolf, and closed it. ”One of them is bluffing.”  
  
”Caught that. Which one?”  
  
”Can’t you guess?” She raised an eyebrow at him, and he hummed, looking over to Steve and Sam trying to guess.  
  
When he realised he had no clue, regardless of how well he knew Steve and his mannerisms, he grumped and turned his attention back to Red. ”I thought you were supposed to be reading.”  
  
”I thought you were supposed to be napping,” she fired straight back.  
  
”Fair,” he acknowledged, lying back on the sofa again and folding his arm under his head. “Steve’s bluffing.”  
  
”I’m not.” Apparently Steve overheard.  
  
”You’re right, he’s not. Sam’s over. By a lot,” Red corrected, opening her book again.  
  
”Can you see my cards from over there?” Sam asked even though they were on the other side of the room and Red was by no means a supersoldier or an enhanced.  
  
”Nope. You just have a tell,” she replied, reading.  
  
Sam and Steve revealed their cards, Steve hadn’t been bluffing and Sam was exactly how Red had described, over by at least five points. ”That’s seven to me, two to you.” Steve smiled as he collected the cards to shuffle again.  
  
”I’m done, man.” Sam held up his hands and slumped in the armchair in defeat.  
  
Red made a noise of discomfort. ”Don’t leave it at nine. It’s an odd number.”  
  
”Well, how about you and Terminator over there come join us for the last round together? Makes things more interesting.” Sam suggested, and Steve seemed to perk up at said suggestion.  
  
Bucky shifted a little. ”Not really a card player.”  
  
Red shook her head.  
  
”What? You scared?” Sam looked at them together challengingly.  
  
Bucky opened one eye and stared Wilson down. Even only using one eye that stare was some scary shit, but Sam just continued smiling like he was pissing in a pool and getting away with it - smug.   
  
”Alright, I’m in,” Bucky said, sitting up.  
  
”Sure.” Red joined in, closing her book.  
  
”Great.” Sam grinned as the two took out chairs from the kitchen to sit around the coffee table where he and Steve had been playing. As Steve began to deal out the cards, Sam came up with another amazing idea. “How about we make it more interesting and place bets too?”   
  
Steve put the remaining deck in the middle. Everyone picked up their two starting cards.  
  
”No one here’s carrying money on hand,” Bucky grunted, checking his cards.  
  
”Doesn’t have to be money. We don’t know how much longer this is gonna take, it’s been a week of sitting around so far. Maybe bet chores?”  
  
”I bet you a massage,” Red mumbled behind her cards, looking at Bucky who narrowed his eyes at her from behind his own cards. The brunette turned to the Captain, talking normally. “What about you Steve? You wanna bet a one-handed massage from James against your own?”  
  
Steve tried his best not to cringe or crumple at the words said so sweetly and only hid his face behind his cards like they could block out the memories or the teasing.   
  
Sam’s eyes were flicking around the table between the trio. ”I feel like I’ve missed a joke here.”  
  
Steve cleared his throat, a finger pulling at his collar as he sat straighter in his seat. ”You in, Sam?”  
  
”At the risk of getting my neck broken by someone if I win, hell yeah. I don’t understand what’s going on but I’m in.” Sam nodded.  
  
”I _was _joking…” Red said quietly but not at all unhappy with how the situation had turned.  
  
What followed was a minute’s silence of everyone deciding whether they were gonna pick up an extra card to try and make 21, and then to choose whether they were going with a bluff or honesty.   
  
”I’m under,” Sam said with two cards.  
  
”Under,” Steve said with three cards.  
  
”Over it,” Bucky said with two cards.  
  
”Dead on,” Red said with three cards.  
  
Silence as they all eyed each other up, readying their arguments. Sam and Bucky locked themselves in a death stare with each other and so Steve and Red did the same. The way Red was sitting, she had Bucky on the left and Steve on the right, and from this close, she could see all the little details of the Captain’s face including a little crease between his brows like when he was thinking loudly. _Definitely lying,_ Red thought.  
  
Steve was doing his own analysis of Red as they stared each other down. Soft green eyes that wouldn’t melt butter, a fair complexion with a dewy softness, and rosy lips that hid wicked smiles when she looked at Bucky. She didn’t seem to be lying but Red was someone he hadn’t been able to get a good read on since first meeting her at the apartment. But as he kept trying to figure her out, he felt his hand itch for a sketchpad - he wanted to draw her, that shy deviousness he’d experienced when she’d snuck into the Centre to follow Bucky that made him stop and consider her. It was a feeling he hadn’t had in a while, too distracted by other things to listen to the artist in him he’d pushed to the side, but now it was making its wishes known. He should buy a new sketchpad at some point.  
  
”Nope. You’re lying,” Sam declared to Red, pulling Steve out of his thoughts as Sam put his cards down on the table.  
  
She shook her head. ”I’m really not,” she promised with a faux innocent expression.  
  
”I don’t trust you.”  
  
”I don’t trust you either.”  
  
”Steve’s definitely lying,” Bucky sparked another accusation which started Sam and Steve off again between each other, forgetting the moment before completely.  
  
It left Bucky and Red to stare each other down this time, and Bucky narrowed his eyes at the young girl, humming. ”You’re lying. I think you’re over.”  
  
”You’re not lying. You _are _over.” Red nodded back to him.  
  
The group accusations across the table once the initial confrontations died down were: Bucky was telling the truth, Sam was lying, Steve was also lying, and Red was absolutely lying.  
  
The truth was: Sam was telling the truth, Steve was lying, Bucky was telling the truth, and Red…  
  
A loud trilling sound cut off Red as she was about to turn her cards around. Steve opened the coffee table drawer and pulled out the fated communicator they’d been waiting on and put it in the middle of the table, pressing somewhere on the side so it revealed an image of T’Challa from the shoulders up, first an outline of black sand but then forming into a 3-D hologram of him that followed his movements.  
  
”Your highness.” Steve nodded his head in greeting since the communicator faced him.  
  
”Are you ready to come here to Wakanda?” T’Challa asked and the four of them responded positively. “Take a look outside,” he instructed, and as Sam stood up to pull back the curtains covering the window, he looked to the sky to see a large aircraft slowly descending into the garden of the safehouse, cooling its engines and barely making any disturbance as it landed and the back door opened down into a ramp.  
  
The other three joined Sam at the window and stared in awe.   
  
”Grab your things and come. There is much to do,” T’Challa explained before his image disappeared from the communicator.  
  
”Is this a good time to mention I don’t know whether I get airsick or not?” Red mumbled, rubbing the back of her neck with her free hand before looking down at her cards. “By the way, I was being honest. 21.”  
  
A simultaneous groan from all three men as they came away from the window was heard in reply.  
  
”Does that mean all of us owe you a massage? Cause no one said you were telling the truth,” Sam said as they started packing away the cards and grabbing their packed bags from the corner.  
  
”No one owes me anything. It was a joke, Sam,” Red replied, stuffing her book into her backpack and slinging it over her shoulder.  
  
”So I don’t get one either? Damn,” Sam muttered, heading for the door as Steve headed to tell Sharon they were leaving.  
  
Bucky leaned close to Red, whispering ”he needs to get a girlfriend.”   
  
Red could only nod and hum affirmative in reply.  
  
  
As it turns out, Red didn’t get airsick. Or at least she didn’t on the Talon Jet they were strapped into, T’Challa and the automated system his sister had installed doing most of the work and talking Steve through piloting. There was a sand table in the centre of the jet, and T’Challa went onto explain all the necessary things about Wakanda and the royal family they may want to know before touching down on the ground and honestly, Red would have been impressed if she’d just been shown a PowerPoint presentation and not this… weird and freaky (but still kinda cool) thing making interactive holograms out of sand.  
  
As the jet approached large rolling mountains of green, everyone in the jet began to get a little nervous.   
  
”Are we supposed to be aiming for the floor?” Steve asked, checking the controls and map again.  
  
”Just watch,” T’Challa instructed as they grew indefinitely closer and closer until they…  
  
…didn’t hit anything. In fact, they safely passed through a camouflage forcefield into Wakanda's Golden City's valley and towards the landing zone in the airfield outside the palace. Red couldn’t move her eyes away from the windows, taking in the rolling mountains and the advanced city spread out across the landscape - the perfect blend of technology and culture. It felt like she’d stepped into one of her science fiction novels and she never wanted to leave. Oh, she wanted to see everything.  
  
The team breathed a sigh of relief as the jet gently lowered to the ground and landed with just as much grace as it had in the safehouse garden, wings folding in and the back door opening cleanly with the main engines shutting down.  
  
King T'Challa was joined by the Dora Milaje on the ground to greet the arrivals as they exited the jet together with their bags.  
  
”Welcome to Wakanda.” T’Challa smiled as they all disembarked as a group, Steve and Sam in front with Bucky and Red standing at the back. “How was your journey?”  
  
”This is amazing,” Red said, eyes scanning the great palace and the gardens that surrounded it while Bucky did the same, agreeing.  
  
”I have talked with our greatest mind here in Wakanda about Sargeant Barnes’s condition and we should be ready for him soon.” T’Challa promised Steve before glancing over to Bucky still looking around like his first time at the Expo.  
  
”Can you never bring me someone closer to my own age, brother?” A female resembling a younger and more feminine T’Challa approached them with a smile, traditional Wakandan dress with a royal touch.  
  
T’Challa waved her to his side and introduced her. ”This is the Princess, my sister, Shuri. An expert in technology and at being a pain in my backside.” He chuckled softly which was met with polite smiles all around and matching greetings.  
  
”Oh hush brother and let me greet them myself.” Shuri rolled her eyes and grinned at the newcomers, spying Red in the back making herself as small as possible as her anxiousness caught up with her. “You are the only one I do not know out of everyone else here,” she picked Red out who turned to her trying not to freak out.  
  
”A last-minute addition to the guest list. She is a friend of Sargeant Barnes,” T’Challa explained, only having seen her twice for a fleeting second both at the overpass in Bucharest and in the office at the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre with Sam and Steve.  
  
”Uh…” Safe to say Red had never been in this kind of situation before and so froze up just the slightest bit _say something, you idiot_ before finally getting her brain to work with her mouth. “Nice to meet you, your highnesses. My name’s Red.” She bowed her head because she didn’t know how to curtsy. _Well done, now just try to not sound like you really need the bathroom when you talk next time, _she mentally scolded as she looked back up.  
  
”Come. I have arranged living quarters for you during your stay. I can give you the grand tour now and we can discuss our business after everyone is settled.” T’Challa nodded to the Kingsguard who all departed to elsewhere, no longer needed, and started to guide the group alongside Shuri inside the palace.  
  
As they began walking, Bucky noticed Red was not looking as relaxed as she usually did. ”You alright?”  
  
”Yeah.” She nodded, but it was stiff and forced. When Bucky raised an eyebrow, she gave up trying. “Nope.” She shook her head, eyes darting around the place in anxious little movements and her hands tugged on the tails of her jacket, trying to keep them still. Bucky was standing on her right but rounded over to her left, much to the girl’s confusion, but when he uncurled one of her hands from her coat to hold in his own, she realised why he’d moved.   
  
She relaxed almost instantly and looked at him softly. “Thank you.”  
  
”Just remember to breathe,” he instructed, not much better himself but able to hide his nerves easier than she.  
  
”Easier said than done right now,” she chuckled apprehensively as they entered the grand palace, unconsciously squeezing his hand a little firmer.  
  
Bucky hummed, thinking. ”Remember how Steve looked when you were embarrassing him on purpose?” That got her smiling in a second, chewing her lip in an attempt to stall her giggle. “There we go,” he said, grinning.  
  
”You two okay back there?” Steve had turned his head to check on them as they were led further inside and the grand doors closed shut behind them.  
  
”Fantastic, Steve.” Bucky grinned back at his friend, the pure picture of innocence.


	35. Lab

Red loved the hospitality T’Challa and the rest of Wakanda were showing her and the others, but she really wasn’t a fan of the room they’d put her in. Don’t get it twisted, the room was lovely and spacious and grand but she just wasn’t a fan of the big bed. It reminded her that she was sleeping alone, and for some reason, that thought just wouldn’t let her sleep.   
  
So, at some ridiculous time in the morning according to the hologram alarm clock beside her bed, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and on not-quite-awake legs stumbled to the door and into the low lit hallway. It was dark in the hallway but brightened ever so slightly once it sensed someone walking around, and that’s probably why when she knocked on the room door she thought was Bucky’s and entered when she heard no response she didn’t realise she was knocking on the wrong door.  
  
“James?” she called out into the room almost identical to hers, except someone was sleeping comfortably in the bed in this one.  
  
”Huh- what? Who’s that?” The bundle under the covers shifted around at both the light peeking in from the hallway and the voice calling to him. But Red quickly discovered a second before she saw his face that she had not walked into Bucky’s room.  
  
”Oh, sorry Steve. I thought this was James’s room.” She winced when Steve’s face came into view from being covered by the blankets.  
  
The Captain sat up, rubbing his eyes with his palms and talking sleepily. ”No, it’s fine. Bucky is next door.” He yawned towards the end and stretched out his arms, neck popping as he tilted it.  
  
”Ah. Thanks. And sorry for waking you.”  
  
”It’s okay.” he insisted in a soft voice and Red nodded, going to leave. “Just out of interest, why do you want to find Bucky’s room?” he asked before she could leave.  
  
Red hesitated. This was already a little embarrassing for having walked into Steve’s room when she could have easily remembered the order they went in if she’d just thought for a second. But she ducked her head and mumbled out, ”I uh… I can’t sleep by myself. Not tonight.”  
  
Steve was silent for a stretch. ”Oh.”  
  
Red nodded, sucking her bottom lip, eyes avoiding the Captain and looking anywhere else in the almost identical room, another difference the colour scheme being blue and gold rather than her room of red and gold. Whether such a thing was planned or coincidence, Red knew it was the latter but couldn’t help and smile at the idea of the former. It felt more comforting that way and less like she was just a rudely interrupting guest tagging along with the supersoldiers and Avengers.  
  
”Well again, sorry for waking you,” she apologised and went to leave again.  
  
”No, it’s alright. I wasn’t really asleep anyway. The bed’s too soft.” Steve said, which made her pause at the last sentence, muttered under his breath to himself. Now that she was listening, Steve sounded much more awake than she’d thought at first, and his voice sounded kind of gravelly - almost choked. In the dim light, the hallway offered she focussed on his face and squinted as she thought Steve looked more than just tired. Her hand wandered without permission to the holopad stuck to the wall beside the door and brought the light in the room up by a small percentage.   
  
Steve squeezed his eyes shut even at the tiny addition of light and turned his head away, but not before Red could confirm her suspicions that he wasn’t doing so hot. “Can you turn that back down, please?” he asked quietly, rubbing his face and clearing his throat.  
  
”Are you okay, Captain?” she asked cautiously, in a way that told him she would back off if he asked her too. She felt a similar way towards him than when asking Bucky after a nightmare if he needed anything, just trying to be helpful and not a burden.  
  
”Bed’s too soft,” he repeated slightly louder than last time, glancing back her way. His face was definitely exhausted, like when Bucky had a nightmare and was trying his best to shake it off without worrying her.  
  
Red chewed her lip, gently dimming the lights until they were off again, and heard Steve sigh a short thanks. ”You could come with me to James’s room. We could have a group sleepover. Make beds on the floor, tell scary stories, and… other things you do at a sleepover.” Red hadn’t had sleepovers since she was about ten, not having the time or the friends to do it with. Not that she cared, they all sounded so boring anyway. Not her thing. Not at all.  
  
”I’m just fine, Red. You go find Bucky.” Steve chuckled tiredly, rubbing his eyes again.  
  
”You sure?”  
  
”Yes.” He nodded politely.  
  
Red took his word for it, taking hold of the door handle again and pulling it gently. ”Goodnight, Captain.”  
  
”Steve.”  
  
”Goodnight, Steve,” she corrected before closing the door and letting out a breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding.   
  
She shook the whole thing off, and after actually giving this plan the thought she should have in the first place, remembered both from memory and Steve’s direction Bucky was sleeping next door. So, this time knocking on the correct door and hearing a grunt from inside, she pushed open the door and saw Bucky starting to sit up.  
  
”You too, hm?” he asked once he recognised her in his doorway.  
  
”Steve’s awake too.” Red said, and moved around to the bed when Bucky beckoned her closer. She crawled under the cover but stayed to her side of the bed, not brave enough to shuffle closer.  
  
”How do you know that?” Bucky asked, his mouth tilting upwards as he leaned his head back on his pillow.  
  
”I walked into his room first by mistake.”  
  
”Doll…”  
  
”It’s not my fault. The hallway looks different in low light.”  
  
  
The next morning after a grand breakfast that left Red with a heavy stomach but therefore no room for regret, T’Challa collected the four of them to take them on a guided tour of the city and through the streets, making introductions between the guests and the residents. Sam liked the aviation areas, Steve enjoyed the city, Red liked the grassy fields and trees, and Bucky enjoyed the farms. And the last place they all were led to was inside the palace just underneath ground level in the mountain. Shuri’s lab.  
  
T’Challa led them all through the corridors towards Shuri’s lab, men and women in matching lab coats and clothes became more and more frequent on the corridors as they approached. All the time he’d been talking and narrating, but now he was talking directly to the Captain and Bucky.  
  
"Captain, I assure you this is the only way. In order for Sargeant Barnes to be cleansed of his programming, he will have to return to cryo-sleep stasis so the Wakanda design group can do its work."

Steve made a face. "I still don't know about all this. Of course, it’s up to Bucky." He looked back to Bucky standing with Red and holding her hand. Steve glanced down at their hands but said nothing, though his own palm itched with phantom warmth for a moment.  
  
Bucky nodded, understanding the risks. "I've got to give it a shot. If you think there's a chance you can make it work." He didn’t notice the look Red was giving him at the new information.

"The scientist leading this initiative is the most gifted in Wakanda," T’Challa promised as they finally entered the lab for real.  
  
”Certainly more gifted than you, my King,” Shuri grinned, giving him a bow as they approached.  
  
”Stop it.”  
  
Shuri laughed and the siblings did a special handshake before leading the four down the spiral walkway into Shuri’s sprawling, futuristic lab. Again, Red found herself reminded of her novels, except this was all real.  
  
Shuri began talking as they walked, “This is my lab. Do not touch anything unless I say you can, there are some very volatile pieces laying around that are not yet finished or tested.” She explained as they got down to the lower level. “My brother told me of your condition and I have been preparing a plan for the procedures we could take and how now settled on the best and most reliable one.”  
  
”Do you really think it can work?” Bucky asked, now a little unsure.  
  
Shuri nodded, bringing up a detailed diagram of the cryo chamber and a human brain beside it on a nearby sand table. ”It will take time. This is not the same as simply fixing a broken bone or a bullet wound. One false move while removing the programming could make you worse than you started, you could lose all the memories you’ve gained and the control you have now. That is a low statistic, however.”  
  
”How low?” Sam asked, pulling his eyes away from the windows leading down into the Vibranium mines.  
  
”19% approximately as of right now. With a 2% margin of error on either side. It may change once I have completed a preliminary scan of you,” she informed them.  
  
”Do you know how long it may take?”  
  
Shuri stared at the screen. ”A month at the least, half a year at the most. I have not seen this type of programming before.”  
  
”When will you be ready for them?” T’Challa questioned.  
  
”A week. I will need to take a pre-scan of Sargeant Barnes and the week will be to study how to first start.”  
  
T’Challa nodded and turned to the others.  
  
Steve looked to Bucky. ”It’s your decision.”  
  
”We’re here for you man.” Sam nodded.  
  
Bucky nodded back and turned to Red who hadn’t added anything, and he saw her eyes were elsewhere and her bottom lip was being bitten harshly between her teeth. ”Red?” he called.  
  
”Hm.” She didn’t look up until after she hummed, lip still being bitten, and Bucky thought he saw blood.  
  
”What do you think?” he asked her, her approval one he wanted more than the others.  
  
She shrugged, almost indifferently. ”It’s your head.” she said like it was obvious, and Bucky grew suspicious of the tone and response.  
  
”Thank you.” he said anyway and turned back to the others. “I’ll do it,” he told Shuri.  
  
She smiled softly and gestured to the table in the centre of the spiral staircase. ”Alright. Now, hop onto my table and I can take the scan now. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt.”   
  
Bucky did as instructed and laid still.  
  
Shuri typed a few things in on the nearby screen and a moment later, his body was being scanned by the module in the wall from head to toe, slow and detailed, until the light disappeared and the machine beeped its progress.   
  
Shuri instructed him to stand and he did. “Thank you. I will tell my brother to come and find you when we’re ready.”  
  
”Thank you, Princess,” Bucky thanked her, along with the others a second after.  
  
”I think now I shall leave you to wander while I attend my own duties. There is a lot I need to deal with now that I have taken the mantle of King.” T’Challa said and gave a small bow before heading back up the staircase and disappearing with that elegance only a member of royalty ever possessed.  
  
Shuri was already over at her desk looking at the scan coming up onscreen, leaving the four to fend for themselves.  
  
”Wanna take a walk?” Sam suggested when they were left alone.  
  
”Sure. Buck, Red, you coming?” Steve asked, jutting a thumb towards the stairs.  
  
”We’ll catch up with you,” Bucky said before Red could open her mouth, not that she’d been planning on giving a verbal answer and instead just a nod, prompting a narrowed look from the young girl at his words.   
  
  
Bucky let them go on ahead and then led Red wordlessly out of the lab the same way and into the upper corridors so they were alone. ”What’s the matter?” he asked once they weren’t surrounded by lab workers or the others.   
  
”Nothing. Just thinking,” she lied easily with a shrug, just wanting to forget it.  
  
”Do you not want me to do this?” Bucky asked, hoping to provoke her into telling the truth.  
  
It didn’t work. ”It’s your head, James. You do what you want,” she answered, and it sounded so rehearsed like she’d been saying it over and over in her own head first before out loud.  
  
”Hey.” He put a hand on her lower arm, gently squeezing. At any other time he’d done such a thing, Red had shoved him off, or flinched, or just been generally uncomfortable, but now they were past that point, and instead, it served to ground her in the moment. “What’s the matter?” he questioned her, focusing on her eyes as they were usually the thing to give her away when she lied.  
  
Red stalled as she thought it over. She could tell him. She could tell him that she was worried, that she didn’t want him to go into cryo-sleep because she would be left alone out here when her main mission was to stick with Bucky. She could ask him how could she do that when he was frozen. She could tell him even if Steve and Sam where still here, she was scared because he wouldn’t be. She could tell him she needed him.  
  
Instead, she told him, ”Nothing. It’s just… weird to think about the tech they have here. It’s like something out of one of my science fiction novels.”  
  
”Red.”   
  
They both knew that was bullshit, or at least in this context because both of them were weirded out by the technology here.  
  
She gave it up, sighing and pulling her arm out of his grasp. ”When were you going to mention that this is why we’re in Wakanda?”  
  
Understanding showed itself through Bucky’s expression as he realised he’d yet to have told her. No wonder she was acting so off when everyone else already knew. ”I forgot,” he excused lamely, a hint of shame lacing his tone.  
  
Red nodded slowly and deliberately at his response. ”Right,” she said, and not much else.  
  
Bucky felt a little like shit at that moment.  
  
Red glanced away from him back in the direction of the lab and then to Bucky. “If they can really do this then trust me, I’m all for it. I’d love for you to not have to worry about this stuff ever again.”  
  
”Then why are you annoyed?”  
  
”I’m not annoyed. I’m…” she trailed off, inwardly frustrated, unable to tell the truth. _ I’m scared, James. You’re leaving me alone._ She was being selfish, she knew, so she bullshitted a better sounding reason because that was easier. “I’m just worried. 19% is still a percentage risk and you could come out of this a completely different person. I don’t wanna lose you.”  
  
Bucky took her hand again, pulling her close. ”Hey. No one’s losing anyone, alright?” His hand moved under her chin and tilted her head up the few inches to face his eye level. “I doubt I could ever forget someone like you, anyway.” He smiled, thumb running over her cheek.  
  
_You forgot Steve,_ the cruel side of her mind pointed out. _Yeah but he remembered him after, _the sensible side argued back.  
  
She chuckled with a self-deprecating smile. ”Sure.” she said, but when she met Bucky’s eyes he saw they were full of humour.  
  
Bucky smiled, gave her hand a squeeze, and then let her go. ”Okay then.” He nodded, and then looked in the direction Steve and Sam had headed. “Steve and Sam probably went back to the landing zone, Sam wouldn’t shut up about it during the tour. Feel like ditching them and heading for the city instead?”  
  
  
The city was expansive and colourful, bright buildings and art decorated the land and a stylistic and cultural way that made it feel like home. Red held Bucky’s one hand as they walked, the people crowding around her giving her that anxious feeling again and Bucky was quick to spot it and quick to take her hand in his, just like he had when a similar feeling arose the day they arrived. The two were so used to each others moods by now, silent understanding and acceptance from either whenever something fell out of place in their days together, and no one ever had to utter a word about it.  
  
Walking down through the markets, something that felt like neutral territory for both of them, Red spotted a nearby display with the time and date. Pulling out her pocket watch which was at least a few hours behind, she corrected the time before putting it back but not before taking notice of the date. 2nd of July.  
  
”James, you know what I’ve just realised,” she started, and Bucky hummed while admiring a fruit stall and reminded himself of the plums he never got to eat that morning in Bucharest. “Its Steve’s birthday in two days.”   
  
Of course Captain America would be born on the fourth of July because Steve wasn’t already a walking flag of patriotism, was he?  
  
Bucky paused, blinking, and Red gestured to the display. Bucky read the time and date and huffed. ”Oh yeah, he’s turning ninety-eight.”  
  
The brunette nodded, thinking on it. ”Should we… do something?”  
  
Bucky ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip. ”I guess we should,” he said.  
  
Red tried thinking about what they could possibly do.”What did you use to do for Steve’s birthday?”  
  
Bucky tried to recall all the past birthdays he could remember with Steve, happy or otherwise, and the truth was they didn’t really do all that much on his birthday, or Bucky’s birthday for that matter. The two of them hadn’t come from very well-off families, they mainly stuck to simple pleasures and tried to make sure they had enough to last them the month. And that was when their parents had been around. He remembered a burning living room fire, Steve curled up with his sketchbook and Bucky tossing a ball into the air while telling Steve about his day at school or the docks, Steve happily listening and humming along when he got to a particularly funny or amusing part. He remembered making a lot of it up to cover his exhaustion, pretending even back then to be strong and stable.  
  
”Stay home and bake a pie, play cards, sit down by the docks and watch the boats sail past. Maybe go out to a bar,” Bucky listed as they wandered through the stalls that ranged from food to art to bathroom essentials.  
  
”Do you think we could do something like that here?” Red asked curiously.  
  
”Possibly. Not sure Steve ever enjoyed the bar part, it was mainly an excuse for me to chat with dames and him to stand awkwardly to the side and scrap with any catcallers he heard.”  
  
Red chuckled. ”A lot of fights even when you were off the streets?”  
  
Bucky blew out an exasperated breath. ”He was like an angry chihuahua. I can’t even count the times he managed to get himself into something when I was this close to finding a girl to either take home or meet him.” Red giggled, and Bucky grinned, but it slowly slipped off with his next thought. “We stopped going after a while. He lost interest in me setting him up and I got tired of trying to drown my sorrows in crappy beer and women. Learned we much preferred each other’s company once we stopped going.”  
  
The long look Bucky gave off into the distance had Red thinking. It was a look filled with loss, like he was trying to grab the memories to replay but they just weren’t available, but more this time, like he was trying to grab onto the emotion this time instead of the event itself. He sounded like he was missing something. Red was beginning to have suspicions about something to do with Bucky and the old days, but she kept them unvoiced for now.  
  
”What about gifts? What would he like?” She moved them on, that suspicious mindset put aside but not forgotten.  
  
Bucky had no clue. He hadn’t celebrated a birthday with Steve since his 20th, then everything got complicated with the upcoming war and there was just no time. A colourful stall caught his eye, and he turned to see an art stall filled with local artists works lining the back and notepads, brushes, pencils, and canvas’s advertised on the front.  
  
Bucky nodded. ”I got an idea.”


	36. Cake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: This is set in 2016 so character birthdays and ages are correct as of canon. Don’t @ me.

Bucky and Red worked quickly over the next two days to arrange Steve’s birthday, asking T’Challa for a favour (Bucky’s idea Red would claim) to prepare the whole morning including information on where to get a good cake and many, many candles. In the end, T’Challa had the kitchens prepare the cake along with some smaller ones for the rest of the residents that would be gathered in the main eating hall.   
  
The only other people usually in the main hall at any time were Shuri’s lab workers or general attendants of the royal court who were offered the privilege of eating in the palace. The royal family themselves never ate there.   
  
Red and Bucky even managed to enlist Sam’s help without alerting the supersoldier to their activities which had been an effort and a half considering that just like Bucky and Red, Sam and Steve seemed attached at the hip, and the four of them hadn’t ever really separated except to sleep since they got here.   
  
So, when Steve walked out that morning into the main hall for breakfast, he was not prepared at all for the entire hall to stand from their seats and happily cheer “Happy birthday!” at him in a way that seemed only mildly creepy with how in unison it was. He stood like a deer in headlights, obviously not expecting the chorus of people yelling at him so early in the morning and especially about something like his birthday which he himself had barely remembered until he looked at his clock display that morning.   
  
”Steve!” Sam called across the hall, waving at him to walk over to where they sat to the top left side on a table with a giant cake lit with ten birthday candles. They’d played with the idea of covering it in edible American flag decorations but dismissed it when Bucky remembered Steve hated fondant, so it stayed plain but covered in lit candles. “We weren’t allowed to put ninety-five candles on it. Something about fire safety,” Sam pouted as Steve arrived trying not to look as embarrassed as he felt being stared at by everyone in the room and the centre of attention even as everyone else returned to their regular activities and conversations.  
  
Steve took a seat at the table, pulling at his shirt neck and giving a shy smile to the table as he looked at the cake baked specially for him and the others waiting.  
  
”Happy birthday, punk.” Bucky smiled at him.  
  
Steve’s smile grew easier and more relaxed at his friend’s congratulations.  
  
”Make a wish. Or a hundred,” Sam joined in with a grin.  
  
Steve glanced around the table at all three of them before blowing out the candles carefully in hopes he wouldn’t blow hot wax on Bucky and Red sitting opposite. The mission was successful as the candles smoked softly.  
  
Red slid across the table a couple of neatly wrapped gifts decorated with pretty, precise red bows. “These are for you,” she told him as if it wasn’t obvious why he was being handed them like walking into a hall full of yelling adults and young teens wasn’t a giant glaring neon sign of a hint.  
  
”Thank you,” he said nodding and went to open the first package of three, opening them in size order.  
  
”Don’t worry about saving the wrapping. Just rip it off.”  
  
”Seems like a waste of Red’s wrapping skills,” Steve said mindfully, delicately undoing the evenly folded and taped paper.  
  
”How do you know it was Red?”  
  
”I’ve spent Christmas with both of you. If either of you had wrapped these, it would be less an a situation of ripping them off and rather touch the paper and it would fall off,” Steve replied and ignored the indignant noise that came from Sam, unwrapping the first gift - a set of sketching pencils promised to be high quality. The second was a thick A4 sketchpad with proper sketch paper. And the third was a set of professional paints along with a pack of quality brushes.   
  
Steve felt a part of himself lighten with the reminder of his old talent and had a feeling he knew who had spilt that little secret to the group. “Thank you,” he thanked them sincerely, folding the wrapping paper neatly before throwing it into a nearby bin.  
  
”Can we eat the cake now?” Sam asked.  
  
”Its barely 9am,” Bucky responded.  
  
”And?” Sam raised an eyebrow.  
  
So, after choosing to have something proper to eat for breakfast, the conversation lulled. That was fine, though. No one at the table was rude enough to talk with their mouths full anyway. But as plates were cleared away, everyone now full on a birthday breakfast, the conversations struck up again.  
  
”That’s the cake, presents, and a surprise. What other traditions do you have on a birthday?” Sam asked, wiping his mouth with a napkin. ”I would suggest birthday kisses but Cap doesn’t have a girlfriend.”   
  
Steve put his hand over his eyes and Bucky puffed, but as Steve separated the fingers covering his eyes and caught Bucky’s stare, Red’s eyes flicked between them and that previously felt suspicion reared its head again.   
  
Sam moved on quick enough to distract her. “Be glad we aren’t at my aunt’s, my cousins believe very firmly in birthday spankings and if they found out you were ninety-five, you would be afraid of wooden spoons for the rest of your life.”  
  
Bucky full-on snorted, coughing out a laugh as he stared deliberately at Steve hiding his face with his hands again, a light flush appearing on his cheeks.   
  
”Well, Steve isn’t ninety-five, not really. He went into the ice as a twenty-six-year-old before his birthday, spent sixty-six years frozen, and then got thawed out in 2012, so technically he should be thirty-one in 2016?” Red pointed out quietly, fingers fidgeting in her lap as she tried distracting them from Steve’s embarrassment.  
  
Sam hummed, considering the point, and turned to Steve with a smirk. ”Man, even without cryo-sleep, you’re old.”  
  
”You’re forty, Sam.”  
  
”Yeah but I…” Sam trailed off, grunting and looking away. “Point taken,” he conceded, and then his eyes landed on Bucky. “How old is Barnes, then?”  
  
”I was put in and out of cryo more than a few times over the last couple of decades, sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for a few months. I should be around thirty-three biologically, but I don’t know for sure. You lose track,” Bucky replied evenly.  
  
Only then did it occur to Red just how much older everyone at the table was compared to her. She knew she was young, but fuck, was she _that _young? She was eleven years apart from Steve, thirteen from Bucky, and twenty-one from Sam. Fuck.  
  
”I’m twenty,” she blurted out amidst her spiralling thoughts.  
  
Steve and Bucky gave each other a dubious look across the table and Sam, oblivious, commented, ”you look older.”  
  
”I get that a lot,” Red said even though she’d literally never ever been told that in her life. She wasn’t babyfaced, sure, but she had always looked as old as she was, which made the look Steve and Bucky shared all the more confusing to her. “My birthday’s in October.”  
  
”September.” Sam raised his hand.  
  
”March,” Bucky added.  
  
”Well, we’ve figured mine out already,” Steve said, gesturing to the table of presents and cake.  
  
”You’ll be twenty-one this year then,” Sam put together.  
  
Red blinked, nodding her head slowly. That’s how math worked, Sam, well done. ”Yeah.”   
  
”Planning anything special?” he asked.  
  
”No.”  
  
”Why not?”  
  
Red wondered why he was interested, but now that he’d asked, even Steve and Bucky couldn’t hide the curiosity in their expressions over the fact. ”I’m not big on birthdays. Maybe when I was like five or six it was fun but as I got to thirteen and fourteen it just started seeming like 'oh, okay, great' and then everything moved on as normal.” She shrugged.  
  
”Do nothing special with friends or family?”  
  
”Wasn’t interested.”  
  
”You’ll be able to legally drink in October.”  
  
”Not interested.”  
  
Bland and blunt were the responses and Sam smartly decided not to continue asking. ”Probably for the best. I can barely remember my twenty-first, I just remember starting the night promising I wouldn’t drink more than three drinks and woke up the next morning duct-taped to my bed with no clue how I got there or what happened after the second whiskey.” He chuckled in spite of himself.  
  
”My birthdays blurred by with bars and dames. The only things I can remember doing on Steve’s birthday is pulling him out of fights,” Bucky told them, giving a pointed look to the supersoldier.  
  
”Why don’t we do that then?” Sam suggested much to the confusion of everyone on the table. ”They have to have at least one training room here, right?”  
  
”So soon after getting healed up from the last fight?” Red asked, unsure. They may have been supersoldiers, but who wanted to fight day-in-day-out all the time?  
  
”It would be playfighting. Roughhousing. No weapons,” Sam clarified.  
  
”And who would I be fighting?” Steve asked, sounding a little intrigued.  
  
”Me, probably. I mean I doubt Red wants to and it’s not going to be Bucky with one arm.”  
  
”I could beat you with one arm,” Bucky murmured but it was confident.  
  
Sam heard and scoffed. ”You wanna bet?”  
  
Bucky smiled, sitting straighter. ”I kinda do. Remember how that last fight went?”  
  
”You were fighting to kill and I wasn’t taken down permanently.”  
  
”You weren’t even awake for the last half of that fight, Wilson.”  
  
The boys began to squabble and Red shook her head, having to try pretty damn hard not to roll her eyes and instead turn them on Steve who was watching the pair with an amused smile. ”Do you even wanna fight anybody?” she asked him directly.  
  
He peeled his eyes away from the two grown men fighting like children once the namecalling began. ”I’d rather take a walk. Or try out this sketchpad,” he answered honestly, hand still sat atop the sketchpad and fingers idly tracing the cover.   
  
She chewed the inside of her mouth as she watched the two grown men arguing and Red couldn’t help herself teasing. ”Cough. Testosterone. Cough,” she hacked obviously into her hand.  
  
The two adults paused their bickering long enough to do a slow head turn and glare in her direction.   
  
Steve just shook his head, chuckling.   
  
A sudden silent presence at the table surprised them all as T’Challa appeared from nowhere, holding a thin box about the size of an A5 canvas. ”My sister and I wanted you to have this.” He held the box out to Steve who took it, opening the lid curiously to see a phone sitting inside. Steve pulled it out to view with a confused stare. Even a STARK brand phone looked less technologically advanced than this thing. “Shuri modelled it after usual American models she knows of but with her own touches. I don’t know all the details but she assured me you would find it a help with the features she included.”  
  
Steve wasn’t clueless with technology but he wasn’t a wiz either, and if it came from Shuri’s lab he was certain it would take him even longer to understand than it did to figure out his current phone. ”Thank you, your highness,” he thanked T’Challa all the same who bowed back and disappeared as quickly as he had appeared at the table.  
  
Steve fiddled with the phone in his hand, unlocking it to the home screen and trying to make sense of the features it displayed. When one was titled as some type of tracker, he briefly joked inside if he could hook Bucky up to it.   
  
”You could probably download all the old-time music you want onto that,” Sam chuckled when he spotted the music app.  
  
”I was thinking of the Troubleman soundtrack.” Steve replied easily with a knowing smile.  
  
Sam clapped his shoulder twice. ”My man.”   
  
Steve turned the phone off and put it back in the box carefully, putting it with the other gifts in a neat pile. “Most of the music from my time was meant for couples, anyway. I didn’t usually have a partner to dance with,” he said a little sadly.  
  
”What about Peggy?” Sam asked.  
  
”Not the right partner. I still owe her that dance though.”   
  
”And when do you plan on giving that to her?” Bucky asked with a smile, knowing she was probably as old as Dot by now. Steve’s expression visibly darkened at the question and Sam wasn’t looking at him. “What did I say?” Bucky asked, smile falling away.  
  
”Peggy’s dead, Buck,” Steve stated. Bucky blinked. That was news to him. “A couple days before the Vienna bombing,” he filled in when he saw Bucky’s confused expression.  
  
”Oh,” he said because there wasn’t much else someone could say to that.  
  
Red, fiddling with her sleeve, spoke up for the first time in a while. ”Are you a good dancer?” she asked innocently.  
  
Steve furrowed his brow thoughtfully at the question, fingers tapping subconsciously against the table in the rhythm of an old swing song. ”I don’t know. Bucky, how good am I?” he asked his friend.  
  
”Like a newborn fawn trying to find its legs. You stood on my foot so many times when I taught you you may as well ’ve been aiming for it.” Bucky snorted. That got a laugh from all four.   
  
”I’m not that bad anymore. Tony signed me up for classes one year.” Steve tried not to look as sheepish as he sounded.  
  
”And how many times did you step on your partner and apologise like you ran over their cat?”  
  
Steve’s silence told them all.  
  
”Still improved,” he argued with a mutter after a beat.  
  
”Oh, I’d like to see that,” Bucky hummed sceptically before looking at Red giving him a look. ”Red’s never danced,” he decided to say.  
  
Sam looked practically appalled at the information. ”Never?” Red, after giving Bucky a wide-eyed stare for telling them that, shook her head silently while picking at her sleeve. ”That’s impossible, everyone dances. Five-year-olds dance,” Sam continued.  
  
”Sam,” Steve said lightly, sensing the discomfort.  
  
”Not me,” she answered, head tilted down.  
  
Sam hummed, looking at the eldest supersoldier. ”Well, if Bucky’s such a good teacher, maybe he should show you,” he suggested.  
  
Bucky didn’t seem surprised by the suggestion, in fact, he seemed somewhat into the idea, looking to Red for an opinion.  
  
_How will he do that when he’s frozen in four days? You’d just be stepping on his feet the whole time anyway,_ that selfish part of her hissed, and she shoved it away as far as she could before offering a shy smile to the supersoldier watching her. ”I’m good,” she said.


	37. Bed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: The book excerpt is from Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I do not own it.

The rest of Steve’s birthday passed by in a blur. There was cake, walks through the city, more cake, Steve trying out his sketchbook while looking at a particularly aesthetic field with small huts, and finishing the cake.  
  
What? The cake was the most important part. Or at least that’s what Sam would tell you with frosting all over his mouth if you looked at him, judgingly, stuffing his face across the table from you.  
  
Irrespective of greedy falcons, amnesiac geriatrics, and fairytale girls, as far as Steve was concerned, it was one of the best birthdays he’d ever had. It was small, simple, and no big fuss made about it other than walking into what felt minutely like a cult this morning when he woke up. But he couldn’t help that small sensation of yearning in the back of his head, the one that when he looked upon the man wearing the same face as his old friend but not the same smile, that longed for that old freezing apartment in Brooklyn they used to share. The one with the front door that used to stick, the one that somehow always smelt of apple pie, the one which always had a broken boiler, the one he would have to share Bucky’s bed and blankets with to not get a cold again, the one where he would blow out little candles on cupcakes marking his birthday.  
  
Back when all of this that surrounded him on his 31st birthday used to be the stuff of dreams. Now they were real. But that wasn’t always such a good thing.  
  
That was the thought Steve woke up with strangely early the next morning. Steve had always been a light sleeper, it had gotten even worse after the serum and the nightmares of being in battle for weeks at a time needing to be ready to fight at any moment, so something hitting the wall in the room to his right was bound to wake him up, and wake him up it did. At first, when Steve shifted awake with a soft groan, turning onto his side, he didn’t know what woke him. The clock display read 3:34am so he wasn’t awake because of his natural sleeping pattern.  
  
A loud bang and shattering sound from the room next door answered the question for him.  
  
Bucky.  
  
He was already at Bucky’s door before he could think twice about only being in boxers and a vest and managed to get inside in time to see the object hurled his way and duck accordingly. Bucky’s eyes were practically black in the low light of the room, his body language rigid and his face set hard, teeth grinding. His hair was damp along with his arm, dressed in only his own boxers and the shower running in the background of the chaos.  
  
Steve ducked under the thrown statue and tackled him onto the bed, holding his flailing body down. Without the arm, Bucky was both lighter and easier to manipulate, but no less deadly by any means. He screeched no sensible sounds and clawed out, bruising Steve’s cheek and ribs as he kicked and flailed to get away.  
  
”Bucky! Bucky, stop!” Steve shouted above the noise, struggling to keep the soldier down. But with the positional advantage and extra limb, he just about managed to hold the struggling assassin to the bed. “Bucky!”  
  
Then like a switch had been flipped Bucky suddenly dropped heavily to the bed, limp and silent, all the fight flooding suddenly out of him like water down a drain. He was breathing hard through his nose, eyes wide open and crazed, damp hair clinging to his face, fingers twitching on the bed and tangling in the sheets below with Steve pinning him down by the chest.  
  
Steve watched him for a few seconds, unsure, making certain it wasn’t just a ploy to get the blond off of him and begin attacking him again. Once he was convinced Bucky was no longer… whatever that was, he relaxed the pressure he was leaning on his body with but kept a mindful eye on the soldier below him.  
  
”Is everything okay?”  
  
And, of course, just when Steve thought he had everything under control with Bucky for a single second, someone just had to stick their nose in. At least he knew it wasn’t the police without a search warrant this time.  
  
Steve glanced back over his shoulder to see Red looking… concerned, is the word he would use, staring at him basically sitting on top of an almost naked Bucky in the middle of the night in only a vest and boxers.  
  
Yeah, this couldn’t have looked any less like what it actually was.  
  
Red seemed to somehow understand that, however, barely bothered by the lack of clothing at all and leaning to the side so she could see around Steve to look at Bucky.  
  
He was still gaping up at the ceiling, eyes like pinwheels and saying nothing loudly. He looked like he did when he would fuzz out and remember a piece of his past, only so much worse. He was panting through his nose, lips clamped tightly together as if they were sewn to stop the secrets flooding forth, jaw clenched so hard she feared he would shatter his teeth like the porcelain figure by the running shower.  
  
”How long…” she carefully stepped further into the room.  
  
”A few minutes. He was screaming and throwing things before I pinned him,” Steve answered like he was ashamed that he had done, but Red couldn’t see another option he could have taken when in that situation.  
  
Red, approaching the bed with extreme caution, felt a little inadequate when she gave it more thought. She wouldn’t have been able to do that. Steve was the only one of them strong enough to hold Bucky down or back and away from someone considering the strength of the man, even without the serum. If Red attempted the same thing it would have looked pitiful and been about as effective as a cocktail umbrella in a thunderstorm. Red felt something burn in her stomach at the knowledge of the fact. Jealousy? But how was that something she could be jealous of?  
  
She shook it off. He wouldn’t need holding down soon anyway, the cryo chamber would do that for him. Maybe when he woke up. If he ever did.  
  
”Buck? Can you hear me?” Steve asked, trying to catch his eyes that stared straight up at the ceiling.  
  
Red chewed her lip. ”James?” she asked, standing by the bedside, and carefully as you would approaching a tiger (not that that was a normal or sensible thing to do for anyone) she reached out one hand to brush the damp hair from his face, fingertips brushing freezing cold skin and making him flinch.  
  
Bucky’s eyes were staring wide at the ceiling, but Red’s action seemed to allow him to gain control, and his jaw unclenched just enough for him to grit out a few words. ”How bad was it?” he asked.  
  
The brunette and the blond looked at each other. Both were hesitant to answer, not wanting to be the one to tell him but not wanting the other to freak him out. The silence of the room barely hindered by the shower still running up a high water bill in the background was the only thing to be heard.  
  
Bucky took it as an answer all on its own, running his hand over his face and through his hair with a long sigh. “Jesus,” he breathed sadly, shaking his head at himself.  
  
”What happened?” Red asked gently.  
  
Bucky took a moment before answering. ”I was trying to take a shower and- and I turned it on and it was just cold. Ice cold all over me. And I was suddenly back there, the train, the mountains, my arm.” He shivered as the memory of the frozen mountains prickled at his skin like needles, and his hand was feeling around in the sheets for something, eyes flicking over to the other supersolder. “Steve.” He swallowed.  
  
”I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” Steve reached for his hand, squeezing his wrist in a familiar warmth he hadn’t felt in years. He felt the hand grasping his own wrist back. “Right here, Buck,” Steve said because, of course, Steve would give Bucky’s nickname a nickname all of its own.  
  
Then Bucky turned his head away and over to the girl standing watching the two, realising the shower had been turned off somewhere during his little moment with Steve. ”You okay, doll?” he asked, grip leaving Steve’s which the blond was silently unhappy about before reaching up to squeeze her hand instead.  
  
”Don’t worry about me.” She shook her head, and then carefully, making sure he could see where her hand was going, touched the side of his face again. He didn’t flinch, feeling her thumb tracing over his cheek in a simple but warm gesture. His eyes wandered around the room, taking in the carnage he’d created himself, and shied away into the pillow. “Hey, at least I didn’t have to hit you with a skillet this time.” Red tried to joke. It came out as a weak sound and a breathless laugh.  
  
”You hit him with a skillet?” Steve asked, mildly concerned and confused at the information, trying to imagine this tiny girl holding a frying pan to a supersoldier.  
  
Red looked up, suddenly shy under his hard staring blue eyes and shrugged minutely, looking back down at Bucky. ”It worked,” she mumbled quietly.  
  
Steve gave a hum that sounded neither pleased or displeased.  
  
This is when Red began to get the feeling maybe Steve didn’t like her all that much, at least in that moment. It wouldn’t surprise her if he didn’t. Not many people liked Red but it didn’t bother her now as much as it had in her teens.  
  
But that wasn’t why. Steve understood he was jealous of how close they were to each other, he understood the circumstances, but he couldn’t help but feel that burn in his chest whenever he’d seen them sharing a little moment together, even with things just as simple as a tender touch. Bucky was Steve’s oldest friend, he’d fought for him before and after the Winter Soldier appeared, he would willingly give up everything for him over and over and over, and yet he knew deep down that their relationship would never be the same as it was before he went into the ice. And that killed him just a little inside every time he watched them together.  
  
“Any way we can help?” Red asked, gently stroking Bucky’s cheek.  
  
Bucky swallowed, his throat dry. ”Talk,” he said.  
  
There was a contemplative quiet in the room between the three, and then Steve watched as Red suddenly removed herself from Bucky and sped out of the room which seemed a little strange considering how desperately she’d seemed to want to help him a second ago, but before he could finish his mental scolding of her actions, the brunette reappeared with something in her hands, jogging back up to the bed.  
  
”I have a subscription to a ‘Classics’ section in my reading app. You can get anything on a phone these days,” she said, scrolling through her phone before finding what she was looking for and sitting down on the edge of the bed, back against the headboard.  
  
_”Chapter One: Down The Rabbit Hole_  
  
_Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?” “_  
  
Bucky recognised that tactic. She’d read from her own book for him back in the apartment when he needed to come down. Not that he’d know, but since Red had read her book so many times, she avoided reading him the second chapter when so wound up since the second chapter of her book wasn’t exactly fitting for the mood, so she went with a different classic instead.  
  
Steve was intrigued. Still a little envious over their close relationship perhaps but he could see the merit in what she was attempting. Steve had been ready to regale him with old childhood tales of their antics together (most of which he expected Bucky wouldn’t remember participating in) but this was also acceptable. But now Red’s voice was catching his attention, and his body felt heavier than he remembered five minutes ago.  
  
_”So she was considering in her own mind, (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid,) whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a white rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her. There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!” (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket or a watch to take out of it…”_  
  
“You falling asleep, punk?” Bucky asked, catching Steve mid-yawn and rubbing his eyes.  
  
“Sorry,” he apologised tiredly to them both.  
  
“It’s okay,” Red replied, shrugging one shoulder softly.  
  
“You have a soothing voice Red,” Bucky told her in explanation to Steve’s sudden sleepiness.  
  
She made a face. “I thought it sounded like cats screeching while breaking bottles. Not pleasant.”  
  
“It’s soothing,” he said a little harder, and she pressed her lips shut to stop a response coming out and starting an argument. Nodding, satisfied, Bucky turned his head towards the blond. “Steve, the furnace isn’t broken here. You can go back to your room if you’re tired,” he said from somewhere he didn’t recognise, the phrase just feeling perfect for the situation and like it rolled neatly off the tongue. What furnace was broken? From where?  
  
Steve didn’t look happy about that though he was trying to hide it, looking at the door Red had closed on her way back in like it was a bigger obstacle than it should be.  
  
“The bed’s big enough for you both,” Red said, nonchalant.  
  
Both boys looked at her, Bucky with a raised eyebrow indicating confusion while Steve’s drawn brow indicated concern. She refused to look at either one of them, acting an award-winning cool as her suspicions reeled in her mind. The boys stayed quiet for a while, long enough for her to continue reading. But nobody left.  
  
_”…so, burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.”_  
  
  
By the next morning, her phone battery was dead and the phone itself somewhere on the floor after slipping from an unconscious hand. Red didn’t know when she’d fallen asleep, sometime after the supersoldiers she’d made certain, but what she did know was that when they’d all snuggled down to sleep in the giant bed provided by the palace guest rooms, her blanket had been significantly lighter than it was now… and colder than it was now… and not breathing like it was now.  
  
When her mind came back to the land of the conscious, the strange line of heat against her back was the first thing she noticed, then the scent of apple shampoo and something distinctly male close by, then the breathing against her back matched with cold air blowing on her neck. _Then _came the realisation that the weight was a 200lb supersoldier’s right arm somehow wrapped around her torso while its owner was none the wiser lying beside her. That realisation snapped her awake quick enough she felt momentary nausea, but it passed when it settled in that Bucky’s only arm was _lying _on her and she was quick to still any movement.  
  
Her eyes opened to the sight of the bedside table, but swapping cheeks pressing into the pillow while still lying on her front, she came face to face with Bucky’s own, just barely touching her shoulder, lips parted and messy hair a struggling curtain over his closed eyes. His breath was cold on her face and his sleeping form looked so peaceful in the slowly brightening artificial lights of the room.  
  
She blinked softly, indulging in the view and how all the stress and the anxiety and the experience that usually hardened his expression when he was awake had melted away and disappeared off somewhere, leaving behind the soft expression of the man, the person, the victim. Her hair was getting longer, and his face was growing stubble again. Red found she liked his face like that, not a full beard but not completely clean-shaven either, though she preferred his hair a little shorter. She wanted to reach out and stroke his cheek, but she decided that would either a) wake him up or b) be even creepier than just staring at him unconscious and unaware.  
  
“Buck, you’re gonna crush the girl.” Steve’s voice was loud in the room even if it was tired and Red nearly flinched straight off the bed as she was reminded they weren’t alone.  
  
“Sorry doll,” Bucky apologised softly, apparently completely fucking awake and perfectly happy to let her creepily stare at him in childish awe, before flipping over to the other side and doing the same thing he’d been doing to Red, only to Steve instead.  
  
“And that’s me,” Steve said but didn’t make any moves to shift away or appeared to look like this was anything new for them both.  
  
“Wouldn’a guessed,” he mumbled into the Captain’s shoulder flatly, too tired to realise exactly what he was doing.  
  
Red chuckled softly at the two.  
  
Steve and Bucky both seemed to suddenly realise something, Steve sliding out from underneath Bucky and Bucky sitting up, rubbing his eyes. Steve moved quicker than anyone in the room had ever seen him move, and Bucky had watched him booking it from a HYDRA agent with a flamethrower before. The Captain cleared his throat. “We’re late for breakfast,” he excused to them both.  
  
Red gave the two a sceptical look but said nothing of it, standing up with a yawn and a stretch as Bucky started climbing out of the bed on Steve’s side. Red collected her phone off the floor and Steve and Bucky stared at each other, a silent conversation held behind her back.  
  
Steve looked worried over something, eyes flicking between Bucky and Red, and when they focussed on Bucky it was like they were searching for something in his expression, just the tiniest hint he knew what he was thinking. Bucky just felt confused by what happened and looked at Steve as if his expression would fill in the blank for himself. But Steve was already looking away with a swallow before Red turned back around. She was staring down at her phone and checking the dead battery while completely oblivious to their hidden discussion.  
  
Bucky glanced back to the bed, he felt confused. He knew he was missing something, and it was almost in his hands, but he couldn’t quite grasp it. But he shook it off and cleared his throat. “Breakfast. I’m starving,” Bucky said, looking towards the wardrobe thankfully not destroyed but the carpet littered inn other broken furniture and what used to be decorative pieces. “I’ll clean this mess up after.” He chewed his lip, trying not to think about the way they’d ended up like that.  
  
”Do you want help?” Steve and Red asked in unison, glancing at each other and then back to Bucky.  
  
”I can handle my own messes.” he told them with that hint of self-hatred lacing his voice.  
  
Steve and Red glanced at each other again, both hesitating to leave, but after a look from Bucky which even in just his boxers was fairly intimidating, the both of them left without another word, heading to get changed for the morning.


	38. Day

The Day came faster than anyone would have liked. It felt like it had snuck up on them all, regardless of being warned it would only take a week to prepare, and yet when the day came, they were all equally thrown off-kilter for a moment.   
  
Breakfast that morning went by as normal with light conversation and a few amusing anecdotes across the table, but then T’Challa had approached them and announced that Shuri was ready and that if Bucky had anything he needed to get out of the way before he went under to do it now, leaving them all in silence as the King retreated back to continue his own duties.  
  
No one said anything for at least a minute. No one really knew what they could say in this situation.  
  
The silence was interrupted by the ring of a phone. Sam reached into his pocket and checked the caller ID, telling them to go on ahead without him if they wanted and disappearing away to answer.  
  
Red and Steve looked to Bucky, hesitantly, who was avoiding everyone else’s eye.   
  
The supersoldier was staring down at the table, an unreadable expression on his features. It seemed the reality of the situation was hitting him like a sledgehammer, and he just had to buck up the courage to fully commit. He’d known it was coming, he’d agreed to it for crying out loud, but now it was going to happen as soon as he said, and he was nervous as all fuck. But he just had to remind himself this wasn’t HYDRA, he wasn’t being punished for some perceived wrong in his programmed mind, and that he could say not if he really wanted to.  
  
But he didn’t.  
  
”I’m ready,” he said after he didn’t know how long, but most other people that had been in the room when they sat down for breakfast had departed, and Red and Steve had no longer been looking at him.  
  
They all stood together, clearing away breakfast, and headed down to the medical facility on a corridor beside Shuri’s lab.  
  
As Red and Steve stood to the side they allowed Bucky to be handled by the busy facility workers which, as both sadly came to realise, was probably the gentlest Bucky had ever been handled by medical professionals before and he appeared almost uncomfortable at how careful and considerate they were being with him. T’Challa arrived a little time later after Bucky had been cleaned up and put in a white shirt and trousers and the edge of his metal arm covered properly for protection, a clean replacement for the bandage he’d just been wearing all this time under his jackets.  
  
When the last worker left Bucky alone to prepare the cryo-chamber sitting just a little away from the hospital-style bed Bucky now sat on, Steve approached him, giving a wary stare to the chamber before the man. ”You sure about this?” he asked, wanting this only if his friend truly did.  
  
”I can't trust my own mind,” he chuckled humourlessly, the memory of barely two days ago with Red and Steve ringing loud in his mind. “So, until they figure out how to get this stuff out of my head I think going back under is the best thing. For everybody.”   
  
Steve nodded, ignoring his internal dejection. ”You know we’ll be right here once they find a way to fix it. I’m not letting you go again.” His words were a promise, the same one he made when they were flying in the jet to Siberia. This was his dark side. Sorry Tony, but Bucky was his home.  
  
Bucky gave a gentle smile. ”Thanks, Steve.”  
  
Steve nodded his head again. Then he looked back at Red stood at the corner of the room beside a doctor, waiting patiently. When Bucky caught her eye, Steve moved away and Red walked to him steadily, seeming much calmer on the outside than she felt inside. ”Today’s the day,” she said with a faux smile when she was stood in front of him, but it faltered halfway through and showed her nerves too easily. Her heart was hammering but she didn’t want to focus on that. This was about Bucky, not her. She needed to stop being selfish. “I’ll miss you,” she told him quietly.  
  
Bucky smiled softly, reaching out and taking her hand, squeezing it reassuringly. ”I’ll be back before you realise I’m gone,” he promised her.  
  
In a moment of bravery and pure heartfelt impulse, Red took a breath and pressed a butterfly light kiss to his unsuspecting cheek. ”Sweet dreams, soldier,” she whispered close enough to feel the heat of his face before pulling back and giving him a gentle smile.  
  
Bucky was frozen in the moment, but it was nothing like when he was stuck in ice. This was so much different, heat blooming from where her lips had barely brushed his skin, and his entire body locked up, tense. Then his heart was all of a sudden fluttering and that was probably not good for his health just before going into cryo.  
  
”Are you ready, Mr Barnes?” A worker approached them carefully, and Red dropped his hand out of hers, taking a step back to give them room.  
  
Bucky’s hand nearly reached out to grab hers back, but he stopped himself just in time. He looked to the worker, unhappy that he couldn’t wrangle his thoughts over what just happened back to him and nodded. “I’m ready.”  
  
They strapped him into the standing chamber and Red and Steve stood side by side, watching the chamber slide closed. The last thing Bucky saw before his eyes drifted closed were the two of them standing like that, so similar yet so different, and both at risk of the programming in his head, which settled him down just as the ice put him to sleep.  
  
Steve’s eyes trailed down to the floor, taking a few breaths and saying his final goodbyes before joining T’Challa stood to the side by a large ceiling-to-floor window overlooking the smokey early morning valley into Wakanda.  
  
Red glanced over to the medical bed Bucky had been sat on moments before and found herself wandering over, sitting where he had sat and felt the whole situation wash over her like a bucket of ice-cold water.  
  
”Thank you for this,” Steve said to T’Challa.  
  
”Your friend and my father, they were both victims. If I can help one of them find peace…” the King trailed off, hands folded behind his back.  
  
”You know, if they find out he's here they'll come for him.”  
  
T’Challa let out a short hum, turning his eyes to the outside of the window with a prideful smile forming on his lips. ”Let them try.”  
  
The view offered to them made Steve want to pick up his sketchbook again. Maybe Bucky would like that, waking up to drawings taped to the chamber like they used to do to Bucky’s room walls, hanging Steve’s random sketches up around the room before worrying about leaving marks in the paint visible to the landlord. They’d learnt that lesson quickly.  
  
“Miss Red?” T’Challa called to the girl lost in her own thoughts on the medical bed, who looked up with a hum. “Shuri said she would like it very much if you were to visit her lab today,” T’Challa informed her which caused Red to have an immediate reaction of something resembling panic and worry as her eyes widened ever so slightly.  
  
”Did she say why?”  
  
T’Challa chuckled, hearing her heartbeat pick up significantly. ”Don’t be so frightened. She is just excited about meeting someone else close to her age “after all the other boring older people you bring to meet me” as she said,” he attempted to calm her in a cool voice.  
  
She didn’t look all that calm as she replied a short ”okay,” but soon resumed her slouching posture on the bed, focusing on a spot on the floor as she tried to straighten her thoughts now that Bucky was safe and asleep less than a few feet away.  
  
Red was… something. She felt… she didn’t know how she felt. As she stared at the floor, the frozen face of Bucky in the chamber sound asleep and waiting for the day he was unfrozen only a few steps away from her, the small girl couldn’t help but feel empty inside. So unbelievably empty - like all emotion had been tipped out of her and left her a hollow body with no purpose. She knew the feeling well, it was the same feeling she’d felt all those months ago before hopping her first train out of there. Only this time she knew why. Without Bucky here, she was bitterly aware that she had nothing. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to help. The last few months of her life had revolved around following the supersoldier and now he was gone and now she was lost. No path left for her to follow. No point.  
  
Her entire body seemed to slump under the weight of the realisation. And she was certain if her mood dropped any lower, it would probably hit the bottom of the Wakandan vibranium mine.  
  
How could she say she was anything but useless now?  
  
”You alright?” Steve’s voice made her snap out of the thoughts to notice him standing barely a couple of metres away.  
  
She nodded, straightening up and putting on a thin veil of confidence. “You alright?” she asked in return.  
  
He nodded, a similar veil of calm passing over his face.  
  
They were both lying and they were both defeated.  
  
Steve gestured to the edge of the bed and Red nodded her permission, so Steve carefully sat on the end of the medical bed as Red subtly shifted to the other, leaving the full expanse of the mattress between them.  
  
They were both silent for a long time. Red pinched her wrist to keep herself from sinking into those thoughts again and breathed slow and deep, counting the seconds in her head, her eyes falling closed as she relaxed herself as slowly as possible.   
  
”What are you going to do now?” Of course, Steve had to butt in. Though Red’s mind jarred at his voice, it also served the same purpose as pinching her wrist which he seemed to have not noticed.  
  
Red let the skin go, the tiny burn she felt fading out quickly. She wet her lips. ”I need a shower.”  
  
  
_”I need a shower”_ as Red found out roughly translated to_ “I need to think sitting on the floor of the shower and then fall asleep to the sound of my spiralling thoughts”_ for her to then wake up shivering because the shower had an automatic shut-off after one hour. At least she felt something other than nothing now. When Red woke up, she didn’t know how long she’d been in there or when she’d fallen asleep but she was freezing and felt just like she had when she woke up at Bucky’s that morning after being stuck in the rain. Which meant, naturally, that now she was awake she was three seconds from vomiting.  
  
Lo and behold, a few moments later, her head was over the toilet bowl and she was greeting her breakfast only a little more digested. Luckily it was only the once, but you really only needed to experience throwing up into a toilet stark naked and shaking on the bathroom floor once in your life for it to be enough. The feeling of void inside her from before was gone and replaced with nausea and honestly, grim as it sounded, she’d take that over feeling nothing at all. She stayed sitting cold by the bowl waiting for anything else to happen, but her body seemed to decide that that was acceptable and just left her freezing with the mother of all headaches.  
  
Eventually, the girl managed to crawl her way back into her room and pull some clothes on, breathing deep and slow as to not provoke her own body further.   
  
It was then she remembered what T’Challa had said. Shuri wanted to see her. She didn’t know why but Shuri wanted to see her, and that was scary enough on its own, and all Red had wanted to do right now anyway was curl up in bed and not move for a few days. Perhaps she could even stay there until Bucky got back. It was worth a shot, right?  
  
No. She said she’d go to see Shuri, and she’d promised herself to stop running away from things that scared her. So, shaking herself a little to wake up and forcing herself to blow-dry her hair enough it didn’t look as damp as it felt, she managed to wrench herself out of the bedroom looking moderately presentable with her coat and backpack and down to Shuri’s lab. She knew this was probably a mistake but hey, she’d made plenty of those before, it was nothing new by now.  
  
Climbing down the spiralling staircase, Red noticed there weren’t as many workers in there as there had been last time she’d visited with the others, although some still lurked around. It also seemed darker somehow, and she wondered just how long she’d been asleep for in the shower.  
  
”Princess?” her voice was croaky from lack of use and probably the cold shower.  
  
Shuri jumped at her desk, startled. ”Don’t scare me like that,” she said, shaking her head and hopping off the stool.  
  
Red cleared her throat. ”Sorry.” That didn’t sound much better.  
  
Shuri approached Red with a happy skip, coming to a stop only a few paces in front of her. Red wasn’t used to people being so comfortable in approaching unless they were planning on robbing her and only just managed not to take a step backwards by reminding herself Shuri was royalty. ”So my brother managed to tell you then?” the Princess asked with a smile.  
  
”He said you wanted me to come to the lab,” Red clarified with a nod.  
  
”Yes, I wanted your opinion on something.”  
  
She blinked, surprised. ”Oh. Okay. I’m not sure I’ll be much help but I’ll try,” Red offered back with a weak smile, trying to shake herself out of her mood.  
  
Shuri tilted her head almost imperceptively to the side, eyes squinting ever so slightly as she studied Red’s face. ”Are you okay? You look very pale.”  
  
Red valiantly didn’t panic. ”I’ve not been outside a lot recently,” she excused.  
  
Shuri hummed a non-commital noise, flicking her eyes up and down Red’s body which made Red a little self-conscious but Shuri didn’t seem to notice. Then the Princess turned to her bracelet of kimoyo beads and squeezed one so it illuminated carved symbols in purple on the sides. ”Can I test this scanner on you? It’s a prototype to replace X-Rays. I designed it to be less dangerous for the body,” Shuri explained.  
  
Red agreed, assuming this was what she wanted her opinion on and Shuri’s bracelet scanned Red from head to toe, a display made of sand projecting out of Shuri’s bracelet with a complete scan of Red’s body once finished, the chest highlighted in yellow.   
  
”I thought so. You’re sick,” the Princess said.  
  
Red realised she’d been tricked. ”Just a bit cold,” she tried to persuade her otherwise with a dismissive head shake.  
  
Shuri wasn’t looking at her but the scan instead. ”You will get worse.”  
  
_Yeah, I know that,_ Red thought miserably. She wasn’t stupid enough to think upstairs was a one-off. She was still freezing even with her coat on now.  
  
Shuri, again, wasn’t paying her attention, instead shutting off the projection and walking back towards the neatly cluttered desk she’d been working at, opening a drawer and retrieving a clear bottle with no label and a stopper in the top. She held it out towards Red.   
  
”What’s that?”  
  
”Rhino tears.”   
  
Red blanched.   
  
Shuri rolled her eyes. “I’m kidding. It’s medicine, genius. Take a sip every four hours for the next few days and you should be fine.” Shuri all but pressed it into Red’s hand and curled her fingers around it securely.  
  
Red looked down at the bottle in fascination and then back up at Shuri. Shuri was looking at her expectantly, and Red discerned she was supposed to do that now, and so taking the stopper off and smelling something similar to the flowers her mother used to keep in windowsill pots when she was little, she took a sip.   
  
It tasted like… nothing. Literally nothing. Which was weird because it had a scent but it was completely tasteless. And it cleared up her splitting headache in a matter of a second and made her feel much warmer inside the moment it hit her stomach like she’d swallowed a lump of coal from a dwindling fire.  
  
”Thank you, Princess.” She bowed her head, the sudden kindness of someone that barely knew her throwing her off balance ever so slightly.  
  
”Shuri,” the Princess corrected, then a moment later her face lit up with inspiration. “I’ve just had an idea,” she announced, and then zipped back to her desk and picking up where she’d left off with her work. Red wasn’t sure whether or not Shuri wanted her to approach but the Princess had already figured that out and waved a dismissive hand. “You don’t have to stand on ceremony for me. Look around. Just don’t touch anything before I say it is okay.”   
  
Red did as she was told. She’d seen the lab once before with Sam, Steve, and Bucky, and she’d been utterly fascinated by it all. She hadn’t been able to see much past all the adults who had been a few inches taller than her but now she had practically the whole expanse of the lab to herself, and she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to take up the chance to explore.   
  
There was no other word for the technology in the room than advanced. Titles of science fiction novels sprung to mind as she attempted to guess the uses of the many machines scattered around. Some were obvious, some were definitely not. But the main sight she was taken by was the observation deck window which she wandered over to and gazed in awe at the exposed glowing rocks inside of the vibranium mine sitting there. It was dark, the sky above at the opening to the mine dark which meant the sun had set by now. How long had she been asleep? Suddenly the thought was dismissed as an automated mining cart whipped through between light panels surrounding the magnetic levitation paths and into another part of the mountain through a tunnel.   
  
“Cool, right?” Shuri had noticed the interest, looking away from her project.  
  
”Is that vibranium?” Red asked and received a nod. She looked at the light panels returning to their original position as the cart disappeared. “Those are destabilisers.” She gestured to them.  
  
”Sonic destabilisers.”  
  
”What are they for?”  
  
Shuri turned in her seat to face the girl properly, an excited smile slowly growing on her lips. ”In its raw form, vibranium is too dangerous to be transported at that speed, so I developed a way to temporarily deactivate it.”  
  
Red smiled a little in wonder. ”That’s so cool.”  
  
Shuri grinned proudly at the approval and returned to her work, using a pair of tweezers to fiddle with some internal wiring on a pair of bulky clawed vibranium gauntlets. A spark emitted from the circuit and she pulled her hand back quickly. ”Ah!” The circuitry had shocked her and she shook out her hand to alleviate the sting, muttering to herself in Xhosa before she switched to English. She gave the gauntlet a disapproving stare. “Still not right. There’s too much energy even with the tiniest fragment of vibranium.”  
  
Red leaned forward a little to see what she was doing but remained rooted to her spot by the window. ”What if you put a small destabiliser inside?” Red suggested and Shuri looked her way, interested and prompting an explanation. Red with only fleeting hesitation continued, “If you delay the vibranium for half a second, it would lower the impact but not completely before it fired. At least I’m assuming it’s supposed to fire, right?” She was staring at the floor by the end of her statement, not wanting to be looking at Shuri’s face that was surely full of exasperation at her suggested solution.  
  
Shuri thought about it, turning to her desk and scribbling some numbers down on a notepad. She mumbled incoherently to herself while she finished the equations. ”That could work though it would take time to design one that small,” she murmured before glancing back at the brunette. “Finally. An outsider with actual intelligence.”  
  
”I like reading science books. Biology mainly.” Red shrugged self-consciously, but Shuri’s friendly smile helped her relax her posture a bit and keep her head up. “I’ve been reading a bionics book recently, trying to bridge the gap,” she added.  
  
”Can I see?” Shuri asked.  
  
”It’s in German.”’  
  
”I can have the scanner translate it.”  
  
Red opened her bag without further question, removing the book and handing it over while dropping a few of Bucky’s notebooks in the process. The Princess took the bionics text as Red scrambled for the notebooks and shoved them back in her bag as quickly as possible, only just having forgotten how Bucky was frozen in cryo in another part of the labs. Shuri gave her a strange look but didn’t mention it and held up a small scanner with a translation screen over the open book on the desk, flicking through it quickly with judgy eyes, her face starting off neutral but growing slowly disapproving. ”This text is so old. I see three inaccuracies already and I’ve only skimmed through two chapters,” she complained, shaking her head and flicking another page. She tutted and shook her head. ”No. Give me a few minutes, I will write you a list of books ten times more useful than this.” Shuri shut the book with a head shake, putting the scanner away, and handing it back.  
  
”Thank you,” Red said to the unexpected offer.  
  
”You don’t have to keep thanking me,” Shuri stated.  
  
”You don’t have to keep being nice to me,” Red retorted.  
  
That quietened Shuri, but as anyone that knew the Princess would tell you, it didn’t last for long. “Is your name really “Red”?” she questioned.  
  
”Nickname,” she answered, Shuri raised an eyebrow for an explanation but Red didn’t take the bait.   
  
”Alright. I won’t poke at your secrets.” Shuri left it alone, sensing the uneasiness and willing to leave it there. Red visibly relaxed, her eyes wandering back to the observation deck as Shuri’s nearby screen began pulling up titles of books in an alphabetical list. ”I’m surprised you haven’t asked me about Sargeant Barnes yet, considering my brother says you two are practically attached at the hip,” she said, returning her attention to her desk project and creating the beginnings of a miniature destabiliser.  
  
”Not right now,” Red said, shaking her head and trying to distract herself. He wasn’t dead for crying out loud, why was she being like this? He would come back. Just be patient for fuck’s sake, Red.  
  
”Well, whenever the time is right, feel free to ask me anything, and don’t be shy to come and visit the lab whenever you wish. It’s always nice to have someone my age around to bounce ideas off while brother is too busy with his duties.”  
  
”Thank you, Shuri.”  
  
Shuri looked ready to say something about the thank you but gave it up easily, shaking her head with a smile and returning to her work.  
  
Red wandered around the lab a little more, finding a small bench that didn’t seem to be part of or connected to anything important. And after asking Shuri whether it was an advanced piece of technology or just a bench (“Relax, it is perfectly normal”) Red took a seat and let the soft humming of electricity and vibranium fill her ears, the occasional lab worker breezing past her with barely a glance her way. Shuri occasionally asked her for her opinion on the design of the gauntlets or the designs painted on the spiral staircase but otherwise remained engrossed in her own work all the time Red stayed in the lab that day.  
  
Red relaxed, letting out a small sigh and leaning against the wall behind her. Her backpack sat beside her, and as she took another deep breath in, she opened it to count all the notebooks inside that held all the memories Bucky had managed to grab onto and keep in one place, the good, the bad, and even the ugly ones were all written down and locking his mind inside them.  
  
_Well,_ she supposed heavily as her eyes scanned over the spines of the books and pulling out one at random, flicking it open, _at least I’ll have something to read in the meantime._


	39. Park

Red fell asleep in the lab. She apologised profusely once Shuri woke her up which, to be honest, Shuri couldn’t have looked like she gave any less of a shit about and just advised the girl either go to bed or lay on the medical table to sleep because, Shuri admitted quietly, that’s what she did sometimes when she couldn’t be bothered returning to her room.   
  
Quite the number of mornings were spent with the Kingguard chasing the princess when she didn’t turn up for breakfast because she was napping in the lab, Red was told. She’d giggled and headed back to her own room, making sure to take a sip of the medicine before she slept.   
  
The next morning started off strange. When everyone sat down at the table, it was obvious everyone knew something was missing but were trying to act like there wasn’t. So, refusing to outwardly acknowledge that Bucky was downstairs somewhere sleeping in an icebox, Sam tried to spark the morning conversation. It was awkward for a few minutes, Sam refusing to look where Bucky used to sit, Steve refusing to mention his name, and Red refusing to talk about anything that happened yesterday including why she hadn’t been there for lunch or dinner, but soon enough everyone slowly relaxed and fell into a normal conversation while finishing their food plates.  
  
It was only after everyone cleared up and returned to the table that things got any sort of interesting.  
  
”So, what are you planning to do today, Red?” Sam asked as he sat down beside Steve again.  
  
”Uh... probably go to the lab,” she answered vaguely, though considering how getting herself out of bed this morning had been a hassle all on its own, all she really wanted right now was to crawl back under the bed covers and sleep. “What are you two going to do?”  
  
”Sam’s suggested sneaking back to the states soon and picking up some unfinished work we got going. Now things have calmed down a little,” Steve explained as Sam took out his phone.  
  
”We’re probably gonna head out tomorrow if they ever get back to me.” Sam stared accusingly at the device as if a message would appear suddenly because of plot purposes. It did not.  
  
”I should probably think about going home soon,” Red mumbled, looking across the dining hall unhappily with her own thoughts.  
  
”You could come with us,” Steve suggested. Red looked back to him. “We could drop you off back at home. Where are you from?”  
  
”Queens.”  
  
Steve gave a smile. ”Brooklyn.”  
  
No dip. Everyone who’d heard of Captain America knew that. She didn’t say so though, trying to be cordial since their little thing with Bucky had put her a little on edge around him.   
  
”If you’re from Queens, do you happen to know any annoying little spider dudes in your area?” Sam asked.  
  
Red blinked. ”Annoying little… what?” she asked, confused. Sam was staring at her expectantly like that was a perfectly normal question to ask somebody. Red shook it off. ”I haven’t been back to Queens in eight months. And I haven’t really kept up to date with the local news since. So, no. No little ‘spider dudes’.”  
  
Sam nodded, looking mildly disappointed with the answer but Red had no idea what else she could say. Then he asked, ”you wanna come with us?”  
  
She shook her head. ”I’m fine. I’ll work out my own way.”  
  
”Can you fly a plane?” Steve asked.  
  
Red’s expression fell flat. ”…no.”  
  
”Then we’re giving you a lift,” he decided for her, and Red couldn’t help but compare it to Bucky’s attitude whenever she’d refuse to do something he wanted her to, especially when it was to make life easier for them both. And that recollection stung worse than biting her tongue to stop an argument flooding forth and forcing her to give up more energy than she had today.  
  
  
Red did end up down in the lab with Shuri later in the day. Making sure to sip her medication beforehand, she hopped down the spiral stairs and was immediately handed a holopad displaying the first page of a book from the list Shuri compiled. Red was thankful for the distraction, finding her seat on a nearby bench as Shuri worked on her gauntlets in comfortable almost-silence for about an hour before the little genius was standing up and waving her hand for Red’s attention.  
  
”Come watch,” Shuri invited Red to follow her as she moved around the lab towards the test dummies standing in a neat row. Shuri took a few good steps back away from the area before removing her kimoyo bead bracelet and holding it out to Red. “This has a camera. I want to record for research purposes,” she explained, putting it on Red before the brunette could make any arguments on the matter other than a confused splutter. Shuri squeezed a specific bead and the recording screen fired up, Red staring at the screen in confusion mixed with wonder as she was still being surprised by the technology this place had.  
  
Shuri cleared her throat, one foot behind her for balance and activating her gauntlets. She raised her arms, aiming them towards the training dummies and narrowing her eyes to focus.  
  
Blue pulses of energy suddenly fired from the gauntlets, the kickback causing the Princess to nearly lose her balance as the training dummies be all but blown across the room by the blistering force, but still keeping an air of royalty as she steadied herself to watch her creation succeed.  
  
”…whoa,” was all Red could say in response as the dummies scattered across the room in a heap on the floor, almost dropping her arm to the side before last-minute remembering she was recording.  
  
Other workers in the lab spared a curious glance towards the sight but soon turned away as if this was a normal occurrence for the Princess’s projects.  
  
Shuri grinned confidently and lowered her arms with a nod. ”It works. At least on the mannequins. I want to see it on a human subject,” she mumbled, and Red was instantly forming an argument in her head about the requirement of her above-par camera skills excluding her from such a fate.  
  
”Ah, sister. What are you working on this time?” It didn’t matter as T’Challa turned the corner of the corridor leading to the lab and approaching the two with a pleasant smile.  
  
Shuri looked at Red with a smirk slowly forming on her face before turning her attention back to her brother. ”Something I might need your assistance with,” she promised. And while leading T’Challa to stand in the firing zone, she whispered to Red, “keep recording.”  
  
Who was Red to refuse the Princess’s wishes?  
  
  
When Steve had suggested they all sneak back into the states, Red hadn’t expected it to be a fully formed plan by the next day. When he told her over breakfast that morning that he and Sam were all set up and ready to go, Red was a little stuck for words. Of course, Steve had already decided for her that they were taking her with them so she didn’t have much else to say but to give her a few minutes so she could pack and say goodbye. She had a feeling if she didn’t tell Shuri she was saying goodbye she wouldn’t be putting herself in the Princess’s good books, and she’d heard some stories about palace servants who had done exactly that.   
  
Shuri printed her out the list of books she recommended and said goodbye with a smile and reminder to keep drinking the medicine, as well as a promise she would be told as soon as Bucky was ready to be unfrozen. After that, it was just a short, nervous walk up the stairs and out to the landing zone where the others were waiting and saying their goodbyes to the king. Saying her own goodbyes, all three embarked onto the jet, closed the ramp, and settled into their seats for the journey out past the barrier and back towards America.  
  
Even with the speed of the jet, the trip took a few hours. And for those few hours, Red used the time to think.   
  
Reading Bucky’s notebooks had been both a help and a hindrance. She hadn’t got far into them in the short time she’d had, but the one she was currently reading was starting to get into the more disturbing stuff; the murders, the blood, the nightmares, the guilt. She wanted to hug him, to tell him everything was going to be okay, to promise to look after him and to be there for him whenever he needed her.  
  
Her heart throbbed for his suffering. And that struck her harder than the Wakandan train would.  
  
She also thought about the inevitable, how she needed to go home at some point, how she had nothing else to do, no plan and no purpose, and on top of it all no Bucky. She just had to wait until he was fixed, and that could take months, maybe even years if fate did her over like it usually did. In the meantime, she would have to find something to do, something to help, something to fix, or face the same dilemma from when she first stepped on a train out of the wreck she’d wrangled herself into before all of this. She thought back to that day when she bought her first ticket out of Queens travelling across the states, she almost hadn’t done it, she’d almost hesitated, but then the train doors opened for her, and all doubt had flown out of the proverbial window. This was where she was going. She had to figure it out. She _had _to figure it out, or she had to…  
  
”Where in Queens are we dropping you, Red?” Sam’s voice brought her out of her spiralling thoughts and back into the present, but a clear message left behind after thinking for so long on everything.  
  
She didn’t want to go home.  
  
”Could you drop me in Flushing Meadows Park? It’s a short walk from my house and you’re less likely to get spotted,” she replied steadily.  
  
_“Short walk” _meaning an hour and a half on foot but whatever. It would give her plenty of time to second-guess herself and consider spending overnight hiding in the park. A big step down from where she was sleeping last night, granted, but she’d had worse sleeping experiences on this adventure.  
  
It was a short time later when Sam began to descend over the park, cloaking the jet as they broke the cloud line and the view of the park settled behind the front window.  
  
Steve stood up beside Sam, eyes glued to the window as he watched it all come into view. ”It’s been a while since I’ve been here,” he mumbled in thought.  
  
”Changed much?” Red asked.  
  
Steve nodded. ”A little.”  
  
Sam looked at the distant expression on his friends’ face, then turned back to find somewhere to park. ”Let’s get lunch together. We’re not in a rush.”  
  
”Is it safe for you two to be out in the open?” Red asked, opening her bag to find her phone.  
  
”If we keep our heads down, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” he replied, and then jolted along with the rest of the jet as the ground was apparently a little bit closer than he expected. The whole jet jumped as it hit the ground, Red’s bag tipped over and a bottle fell out, the cap coming off and spilling out onto the floor. Red’s eyes widened in dread.  
  
“Easy on the landing, Sam,” Steve admonished once they were steady on the ground.  
  
”It’s harder when the vehicle is invisible,” the pilot responded.  
  
_Fuck, fuck, fuck._ ”Fuck,” Red said, staring at the mess of the medicine bottle.  
  
Steve looked over his shoulder. ”You alright?”  
  
”Just spilt some water,” Red quickly excused, on her knees and looking at the mess of medicine on the floor. And there was no way to scoop it back into the bottle. Well, there was, but it was past the five-second rule and now completely unsanitary and would probably result in Red getting worse instead of better if she tried to drink it.  
  
Maybe she could get away with it. Red hadn’t been feeling too bad that morning. And it’s not like she could just ask Sam to turn the jet back so she could get more.  
  
When Steve approached, she panicked appropriately and threw a dirty shirt onto the mess, cleaning it up quickly before she could realise he was holding paper towels. Whoops. It seemed Steve wasn’t expecting the move either because he just kind of stood there for a moment staring down at the quickly dampening shirt, and then at his paper towels, before wordlessly putting them down on the bench and opening his bag to grab something. The something he grabbed he then placed on his head, and Red would recognise the design on that cap anywhere.  
  
”Hey, I bought Bucky that same hat,” she said, smiling slightly.  
  
Steve looked at her with an unreadable expression that Red didn’t find she was comfortable with, so as a distraction she pulled the same hat out of her own backpack and put it on her head to show him. Steve remained quiet but she saw the corner of his mouth tilting upwards at the display.  
  
”Cute,” Sam commented with his own grin at the little display, getting up from the pilot’s seat to grab his own cap because you couldn’t be on Team Cap without an actual cap.  
  
”C’mon.” Steve slung his jacket over his shoulders and headed to the opening ramp.  
  
  
The last time Steve was in Flushing Meadows Park was when he and Bucky attended the _World Exposition Of Tomorrow _back in 1943. It may have been a redundant statement to make but Steve realised an awful lot had changed in 73 years, much more than Red or even Sam would have noticed. He could remember that night perfectly as they’d strolled through the Modern Marvels Pavilion, the bright promise of _“A greater world. A better world.”_ and Bucky bringing two girls to join them. He could still see his friend’s bright smile, his shiny uniform, hear his carefree laugh as he promised to take the girls dancing even if Steve wouldn’t come with him. Steve knew he’d only be disappointed when he would stand awkwardly and try not to stare at the partner he truly wanted to dance with all night. It had been so different. _He _had been so different.  
  
_”Come on, man. My last night! Gotta get you cleaned up.” Bucky slung his arm around Steve’s much shorter frame and skinny shoulders, leading him out of the alley with a bruising cheek and split lip.  
  
”Why? Where are we going?” A young Steve asked his friend in uniform.  
  
Bucky had passed him that newspaper and grinned like the young naive man he was. ”The future.”_  
  
Well, he hadn’t been wrong.   
  
The thought sat heavy in Steve’s gut and it made longing coil through his stomach and clench it.  
  
The rumbling sound of an empty stomach broke him from his thoughts and his eyes settled on the little girl on his left not looking at them and then to the man on his right who was grinning.  
  
”Call of the beast.” Sam chuckled and Red tried not to look embarrassed. ”Any recommendations for food places?” he asked the brunette.  
  
Red looked around, trying to remember what everyone ate whenever they were together and remembering a distant comment about Steve’s penchant for pie from Bucky selected a charming little cafe nearby she’d previously frequented and pointed. ”They have a just-about-everything menu. The apple pie is phenomenal,” she told them.  
  
Sam and Steve shared a glance and a nod, taking the girl by her word and shuffling over to the cafe in question.  
  
  
Conversation flowed smoother over lunch than breakfast, everyone keeping their heads down but relaxed enough they could enjoy the sun and the food. It was a good spot, nice views and outside eating tables, and the food was just as good as Red described. Steve had elected to try the apple pie after Red’s recommendation and he was definitely not disappointed, most likely because it was in-house baking and not store-bought.  
  
Red had been ignoring the feeling building in her chest for the last few minutes. She knew exactly what it was and she felt panic flare up in her gut. She hoped the others would want to move soon so she could get away and deal with it on her own, and as luck would have it, the boys were finished with their cups and Sam checked the time on his phone, announcing they would have to leave soon to catch whoever they were meeting. Leaving a tip at the table, the three stood and got to a less crowded part of the park ready to say their goodbyes, but as they were leaving the table, Red froze on the spot as she recognised the sensation quickly bubbling in her stomach.  
  
It seemed as luck would also have it, she was running to the nearest trashcan and emptying everything she just polished off from the cafe in a not very flattering picture. She tried to catch her breath and stop herself doing it again as well as avoid the eye of any passing park patrons that were unfortunate enough to look over at the wrong time.  
  
”Hey, hey, hey…” It was Steve that had noticed first, apparently, as he approached her side with a look of concern on his face. “What’s the matter?” he questioned, not having seen her vomit but clearly having an idea of something since she was still a little bent over the trash can.  
  
”N-nothing. I’m fine,” Red insisted, standing straighter and trying to look better than she felt.  
  
”What was that? You both just disappeared on me,” Sam’s voice grew steadily closer as he jogged over to the pair.  
  
”Red’s sick,” Steve answered, cutting through the bullshit she was trying to feed him on top of his lunch.  
  
Red swallowed. ”I’m fine. Just need to breathe.” The girl shook her head and waved her hand, immediately regretting both when they stimulated her nausea. “Just ate too fast, it’ll pass.”  
  
Someone’s hand was touching her forehead but removed itself before they could feel the flinch. ”You’re burning up.” Steve’s voice.  
  
She took a deep breath in, forcing herself to stand fully upright and ignore her chest and head. ”I’m fine. I’m gonna walk home. Call me when James is back,” she said as confidently as possible as she looked around for the nearest exit from the park.  
  
”You’re not going anywhere like this,” Sam declared because apparently everyone wanted to be the boss of her nowadays. Red wanted to tell him to politely screw off and that she was her own person but didn’t exactly have the energy right now. “Why didn’t you tell us you were sick?” he demanded, but it wasn’t harsh, just concern laced with worry like a person who cared about other people.  
  
”Shuri gave me some medicine,” she answered softly.  
  
”Where is it?”  
  
She cringed and looked down, quietly admitting, ”on the floor of the jet.”  
  
Simultaneous sighing noises from both.  
  
What? It wasn’t like she’d _meant _to.  
  
”How long have you been ill?” Steve asked.  
  
”Since they put Bucky under.”  
  
”Why didn’t you say?”  
  
Red shrugged, still not looking at them. ”Didn’t wanna be a burden.”  
_  
And in doing so you have made things ten times worse, as per fricking usual, _she berated herself. Red really should have learnt this lesson by now, but the universe was happy to remind her every time she forgot herself.  
  
”You can’t go home like this,” Sam said finally, then looked to Steve. “What do we do?”  
  
Steve didn’t know. Red didn’t look ready to do any serious walking anywhere but they had a schedule to keep. All that came out was ”we’re going to be late for the meeting.”  
  
”Sorry.”  
  
Sam shook his head, dismissively. ”Don’t apologise, it’s not your fault. Everyone gets sick from time to time. You should see me with man-flu, I look and feel half-dead for like a week.” He attempted to lessen the guilt she was plainly pushing on herself.  
  
Steve looked at Red who was taking slow deep but quiet breaths to cover up the fact she was taking deep breaths to push away the nausea. He recognised the vulnerability in her expression and the ever-increasing self-worth issues that were eating at her as fast as he’d downed that apple pie. He may not have been on the best terms with the girl but Steve was not about to throw her to the wilds of the world. If Bucky could look after this kid for a few months, he could continue for a few hours.  
  
Finally, he sucked it up and said, ”There’s a medical cupboard on the jet. It probably has something that could help.”  
  
”What about your meeting?” Red asked, not even bothering to spare her sickness a thought after knowing they had imminent plans she was hindering.  
  
”You could rest on a bench inside the jet while Sam and I sort things out. We won’t leave you for long.”  
  
Red didn’t look convinced. ”It’ll be easier to drop me back home,” she insisted.  
  
Why was this kid so damn stubborn? He felt his frustration grow. ”You’re staying on the jet. Don’t be a martyr, Red,” he replied. And he didn’t know whether it was the Captain’s Voice, the hard look he was giving her, or a mixture of the two, but a flash of recollection breezed through her eyes and she gave it up, nodding softly as her body slumped in defeat against the trash can.  
  
Steve tried to take her by the arm to stabilise and guide her back to the jet and she flinched back instantly at his touch. And okay, that wasn’t a nice feeling for anyone, Steve and Sam sharing a look and Red playing it off as casually as she could, especially when she looked around at the people starting to take notice of the three crowded around the trash can.  
  
”We should go,” she said, eyes flicking between the watching eyes of people around.  
  
The boys took notice of the people and quickly agreed, hurrying to the jet with the sick little adventurer not far behind.  
  
  
They left Red lying down inside the jet with some cold medicine and the reassurance they would be back soon. Red didn’t know when she fell asleep, but she stirred to the breeze that accompanied the opening of the jet ramp and sound of heavy footsteps approaching. When she opened her eyes to a at first blurry room and then blinked away the fuzziness, Sam was crouched beside her bench and holding something out to her.  
  
”Here. Got you some soup on the way back,” he said gently, holding out a cup that smelled faintly of heated creamed vegetables.  
  
Steve passed behind Sam, and Red didn’t miss the little glance he spared her way before sitting in the pilot seat without breaking stride. ”Thank you, Sam,” she thanked him with a slightly croaky voice and sitting up, reaching out to take the hot cup from his hand with a nod.  
  
When Steve started punching in coordinates, Red turned a confused expression on the Falcon. ”I’ve got a place that wasn’t on-record for SHIELD that we think will be safe. We’re gonna take you with us there while we get settled in and once you’re strong enough, we’ll take you home. Sound good?” he asked her permission as the jet ramp folded closed.  
  
Red nodded without argument. ”Thank you.” she thanked him again and he nodded with a grin that was nothing less than friendly. It made Red feel happy, and she began to sip the soup in the cup as Sam walked away and joined Steve at the pilot’s seat.  
  
He sat himself down in a seat and buckled in, glancing over his shoulder to a distracted Red before to Steve. ”Can you stop looking at her like she’s beating Bucky to a pulp right in front of you, please? It’s distracting,” he whispered, pulling up the map on the viewing window as Steve looked at him, surprised by the sudden accusation.  
  
”I’m not looking at her like-”  
  
”Yes you are. Cut it out, man.” Sam told him sharply before settling back in his seat for the long flight.  
  
Steve furrowed his brow at his friend but said nothing, also sparing a look back at the brunette sat sipping her soup and looking ready to nod off again. He pressed his lips together, a rolling wave of thoughts pouring over him as he twisted back around to resume control of the jet, remaining a silent bundle of thoughts all the way to Sam’s.


	40. Books

The trio made it to Sam’s house unharmed and unfollowed by early morning. Sam unlocked the door and quickly scouted the house before having Steve guide a sleepy Red inside and put her on the sofa. The jet had picked up no other heat signals in the area so they assumed it was safe enough. That left Sam and Steve with time to nap and have breakfast before Sam took a jog around the area (and also to scout the perimeter just in case) and left Steve to guard the girl along with a book from his shelves to keep him busy.  
  
Steve had been reading at the same time he was thinking, having to reread many of the pages as he didn’t take in the words and eventually gave up, putting his hand on the page to mark it as he attempted to round up his thoughts so he could concentrate.  
  
He was evaluating himself up to now, the options he had with the new work he and Sam could be doing here while waiting for Bucky’s revival. Hopefully, they wouldn’t have to wait long. Logically, it would take time for this to be done properly. No one could fix Bucky with a snap of their fingers and undo years upon years of torture and brainwashing that fast. Even with the technological advancement Wakanda had, it would be a wait and a half until they saw Bucky again, and when they did, it was entirely possible it would be another different character than the Bucky’s Steve had previously encountered.  
  
He just had to hope: the one that knew his mother’s name and knew he wore newspaper in his shoes.  
  
That brought him to another train of thought (don’t think about trains, Steve, just don’t) about how he really felt over the whole thing. He knew this was the best for Bucky, but all he wanted to do some moments of the day was fly back, break open that case and hug Bucky as if he could force the memories back inside him with his own embrace as if he could just transfer the memories from him back into his friend. And after those moments he mentally slaps himself and tells himself to pull his shit together.  
  
He just feels so lost and empty and like an asshole for not being able to let the past be the past. He was so eager for everything to magically be fixed that he let himself be blinded from what was happening around him.  
  
Maybe that’s why he hadn’t seen the Washington Incident coming a few years back. He’d been too focused on being the Showreel Man who everyone expected him to be and then saving his friend that everything else became secondary to that. He’d refused to let that be the case with the Accords, but now he’s of a mind that he fell into the same trap. Maybe Tony was more right than he’d first acknowledged.  
  
His eyes will forever glisten with the ghosts of his past unless he learns to move on.  
  
”Steve?” Red had woken up from her nap. She was sitting up on the sofa of the joined living room and kitchen to see him bent over the kitchen table with his back to her.  
  
”Hm.” A short acknowledgement from the Captain as he pushed his thoughts out of the way.  
  
Red, who had been awake and thinking longer than she would admit to him, wet her lips and cleared her throat. ”Do you like me?” she questioned.  
  
Steve twisted around in his chair to stare at her, startled by the suddenness of the question and how awake she looked.  
  
“It’s okay if you don’t. You don’t have to,” she insisted, shrugging slightly as if she didn’t care.  
  
”What makes you think I don’t like you?” he asked.  
  
Red’s expression fell from awake to exhausted. “You just… give off that vibe,” she admitted quietly, not looking at him and instead at the cream coloured carpet.  
  
Steve’s thoughts wandered back to what Sam said on the jet, and how obvious it must have been that he was a bit touchy around her. He’d never suited green.   
  
He tried to pull together an excuse. ”It’s not that I don’t like you. I’m sorry if I’ve made it seem that way. It’s…”   
  
The weak apology died in his mouth. He didn’t want to lie. This girl who had been following Bucky like a lost puppy same as him deserved better than that. So he told the truth instead and hoped that whatever Bucky had told her about his past with Steve helped her understand.   
  
“I can’t let him go again. I’ve lost him twice already, I can’t stand to lose him one more time,” he began. “Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky. He was my best friend. He stood up for me, he protected me, in schoolyard and battleground. He might not remember but I do, I remember it all. And when I saw how he is with you… well, it reminded me of how he and I used to be together - close, comfortable, not jumpy and difficult. Bucky doesn’t remember like I do, parts of him are lost to HYDRA’s wiping and programming, and I…”  
  
Steve took a deep breath in to steady himself.  
  
”I know he’s not the same person that he was when I knew him, and I’m jealous. Seeing you two together reminds me of how it used to be. I know need to let that go because even if Shuri’s plan works and even if he ever gets all his memories back, too much has happened for him to be the same person he was. But it’s hard. And I don’t mean to project it all onto you but… no one else knows him like we do. No one else understands.”   
  
Steve dropped his head so it hung low, a man ashamed and afraid. “I’m sorry,” he said, and his tone made it sound like his deepest confession.  
  
Red was silent for a long stretch, letting the words turn over in her mind. Steve was scared, and suffering, and longing for his old friend whom he would never get back no matter how well Shuri’s technological wizardry might work. He could blather about Bucky to Sam until the cows came home but he still wouldn’t fully understand what Bucky was to him, but when he’d caught sight of those looks between Red and Bucky, he knew she understood like he did.   
  
And she did, enough to see what Steve really was when he stood in front of her open and vulnerable like this.  
  
He wasn’t a perfect soldier. But he was a good man.  
  
And that’s the reason why she said ”I forgive you” so easily.   
  
Steve looked up from the floor, his eyes filled with hopeful surprise.  
  
“But next time maybe just say that? Or give me some word of how you feel instead of staring at me like you wanted me to jump off the top of the Wakandan Royal Palace.”  
  
”I don’t. I would never want you to do that,” he insisted quickly, sitting up straighter as if ready to stop her doing so right then.  
  
Red held up a hand. ”Relax. I’m aware I have an overactive imagination sometimes and I’m probably exaggerating but that’s how it felt. I understand, but if you could tell me all that to my face instead of keeping it to yourself I would appreciate it. A lot.”  
  
Steve could agree to that. ”I’ll try,” he promised. “I’m sorry I acted like that to you.”  
  
”I understand. Believe me.” Red nodded gently. “It’s like you said. No one knows him like we do.”  
  
Steve sighed, slumping a little against his seat as the tension left his body. It had already been one hell of a morning and it was barely 10am. ”How are you feeling?” he moved the subject on as he noticed the colour was back in her cheeks.  
  
Red smiled. ”Better. Not back to normal but better.”  
  
”If you tell us your address we could probably drive you there.”   
  
The smile fell off her face though she tried to hide it. ”Just the park would be fine,” she replied.  
  
“What’s the problem, Red?”  
  
Red swallowed, biting the inside of her lip almost hard enough to taste blood, but the careful and compassionate look from Steve (a change from previous looks he’d been giving her) prevented it going too far. ”I don’t want to go home.” she admitted quietly. “Not yet. I’m… I’m not ready yet.”  
  
Steve tilted his head, trying to catch her eye as it wandered elsewhere. ”Is everything okay?”  
  
”Personal stuff.” Red answered. Then as the slowly increasing concern on his face added “I’m okay. I promise.” with a gentle reassuring smile.  
  
Steve watched her for a few seconds longer, determining whether or not to leave it there, but after the conversation they’d just had, he decided to give the girl a break. ”Do you want anything to eat? You’ve been out for a while.”  
  
”Yes, please.” Red nodded, and Steve stood up to walk to the kitchen. It was then Red noticed the open book on the table in place of where he’d been sitting. “What are you reading?” She tried leaning up to see the title.  
  
”_Emma _by Jane Austen,” Steve replied as he looked around the kitchen for something light to eat. “It was on Sam’s shelves.”  
  
Red relaxed against the sofa cushions. ”I’ve had that on a reading list on my phone for a while. Never got around to reading it.”  
  
”I’m about halfway through. It was on my list.”   
  
Red smiled at his response. ”Do you like it so far?” she inquired.  
  
Steve took a second to think about it as he dropped a few slices of bread into the toaster. ”It’s different from the usual types of books I like reading but I thought I’d try something new.”  
  
”What do you like reading?”  
  
”Detective fiction, usually. I like the classic “Whodunnit?” styles.”  
  
Red’s smile grew. ”Have you read the Sherlock Holmes stories?”  
  
Steve nodded. ”A few. I know there’s a lot I haven’t. I don’t even know how many there are.” he mumbled, running a hand through his hair to push it out of his eyes. He needed to get it cut.  
  
”Sixty,” Red answered brightly and Steve leaned his back on the counter so he could look at her expression growing steadily more excited. “I’ve read most of them, either online or after buying the actual book. I have the whole series in hardback on my shelves at home but didn’t get around to reading them all yet. The Hound of the Baskerville is my favourite so far. I could send you links to the ones I bookmarked online. If- if you wanted, I mean.” She fumbled towards the end of her speech, head ducking as Steve’s lips pulled themselves into a grin. “Cause you like detective fiction and stuff…” she mumbled quietly at the couch cushion, beginning to pick at the threads along the cover zipper._  
  
_”I would love that,” Steve said and Red’s head snapped up, trying to hide her excited smile. Steve smiled at the kid and turned around when the toast popped up out of the toaster. Taking it out and buttering it up, he asked: “would you want to borrow _Emma _after I’ve finished it?”  
_  
_Red let her smile through and laid on her front on the couch, her upper body perched on the arm. ”Yes, please. If Sam says it’s okay,” she said as she watched him begin to cut the toast into pieces.   
  
Only about halfway through cutting the toast into strips did Steve realise what he was doing and stared a little dumbfounded down at the plate and his muscle memory. ”Uh…” he said eloquently, putting the knife down and taking the plate over to Red to show her when she made a questioning hum.   
  
Red looked and tried to smother her giggle, taking the plate. “Soldiers. Why am I not surprised?”  
  
Steve rubbed the back of his neck. ”Force of habit,” he excused.  
  
”I don’t mind,” Red told him, biting into the first strip of toast. “Toast is toast, no matter how you slice it.”  
  
Steve made a groaning noise and put his face in his hand thinking about how that was such a Bucky thing to say, and Red let out another giggle at his turmoil.  
  
”Ah, she’s awake,” Sam’s voice followed him into the connected kitchen area through the front door. He’d fully checked there were no bugs or surveillance vans spying on them around the perimeter and returned home needing a shower. “You doing alright?” he asked Red.  
  
”Yeah,” she said, glancing back to Steve who was giving her a soft look and a gentle nod. “I think I’m good.”  
  
Sam nodded. ”Good. Because as soon as you’re up to it, I want a rematch on that card game,” he announced with a pointed look.  
  
”Just let it go, Sam.” Steve shook his head, going to sit back at the table again.  
  
”No. I will not just let it go. Both of you cheat at that game, I swear,” Sam accused them both, standing behind his own hair with his hands resting on the top.  
  
”Look, I get that you were the best card player in your tour but all I’m saying is that you’re just not that good outside of it.”  
  
”Oh, that how it is?”  
  
”That’s how it is.”  
  
”I’m gonna make you eat those words.”  
  
”I’d love to but I’ve already had breakfast and I’m on a diet.”  
  
”How old are you two again?” Red pitched in from the sofa, her finished plate sitting beside her as she watched the two bicker lightheartedly.  
  
The boys chuckled in tandem.  
  
”Rematch. Cards. Please?” Sam asked the brunette, shower forgotten.  
  
Red conceded and held out her hand. ”Hand me the deck, I’ll deal.”  
  
Safe to say Red had had far worse mornings waking in Queens than this. Sat at the table with Sam on her right and Steve on her left, she at some point during the third round realised she didn’t feel out of place. Not in the slightest. She was relaxed, smiling, having _fun_. So was everyone else around her. It was nice to just be a person for a little while, to forget anything outside Sam’s front door existed. She didn’t itch to reach for a book.  
  
And between a high-school graduate, an Air Force Pararescue veteran, and Captain America with his unused reservoirs of 40’s sass, all in all it was made to be a good day for everyone.


	41. Redhead

It was the week beginning July 25th. Natasha Romanoff had not expected to begin her Monday morning dealing with a new guard dog at her friend’s house but she could adapt. Surveying her surroundings one more time to check she hadn’t been and still wasn’t being followed, she calmly walked up to the front door and knocked, waiting patiently for an answer.  
  
After about a minute her brow furrowed and she knocked again a tad louder.  
  
Again, after a minute’s silence, her brow furrowed further. Pulling out her phone, she sent a quick text to her friend. A few seconds later she received a reply regarding an apology about an uninformed guard dog and a promise they’d be there soon.  
  
Moments later she heard the lock click and the door opened, revealing a wary looking brunette staring back at her before nodding their head in a “come inside” gesture.  
  
Natasha smiled politely and entered. “Thank you,” she said as the girl closed the door behind her and locked it again.  
  
”Miss Romanoff, I was told,” the girl said, hands by her sides in a ripped navy coat.  
  
”Natasha,” Nat replied calmly. “Dolly Tucker, right?” She gestured to the other woman, knowingly, which had the girl narrowing her eyes ever so slightly in a suspicious twitch. “Or I guess I should really call you-”  
  
”_No_, you _shouldn’t_,” ‘Dolly’ cut her off sharply with a narrowed look of warning. “My name is Red.”  
  
Natasha didn’t feel threatened, but she was cautious enough to raise her hands pacifyingly, especially when she noticed Red thumbing the initials carved into her pocketknife hidden up her jacket sleeve. ”Easy,” she said, “I’m not here to start a fight. I’ve had enough of those in the past few months.”  
  
Red said nothing for a moment as she subtly (or at least it would be subtle in front of anyone besides Romanoff) slid her knife back in her pocket but not before Natasha could make out the initials _“A.J.L” _carved crudely into the red casing. ”Just call me Red. I don’t like my other name,” she told her, leaning on the wall beside the kitchen and folding her arms.  
  
”Alright,” Natasha agreed, deciding it would be simpler to just go with it. She’d had clients and even coworkers in the past with stranger habits. “Am I allowed to get to the coffee maker?” she would, however, ask questions about caffeine.  
  
Red nodded and Natasha breezed easily past her into the kitchen, making a cup in less than a minute by already knowing where everything was. She didn’t ask Red if she wanted a cup and Red didn’t ask for one, so within a minute Natasha had a full mug in her hands and seated herself at the kitchen table where Steve usually sat. That made Red uncomfortable, like stroking a dog’s fur the wrong way, but she said nothing.  
  
Luckily, the edgy silence between them didn’t stretch on long before the sound of a key in the door had both women turned to Sam and Steve strolling in, Sam’s outfit drenched with sweat and Steve’s, of course, completely unaffected because supersoldier body.   
  
”You’re early,” Sam said to the redhead as he shut the door.  
  
”Traffic was better than I thought,” Natasha replied with a shrug. Then she nodded towards Red. “Your guard dog did a wonderful job. I was very intimidated,” she said not at all sarcastically.  
  
Sam looked guiltily to Red. ”I didn’t think Nat was gonna be back before us. We should have warned you.”  
  
”Yeah. Maybe.” Red nodded pointedly and the pilot looked away, sheepishly.  
  
Steve cleared his throat, gesturing between Red and Natasha. ”Did you check…” he trailed off suspiciously.  
  
Nat smiled. ”Yeah. She’s clean from any consequences the Secretary wanted to pin on her. And Dolly Tucker’s credentials have mysteriously disappeared from all available government files. Lucky for you, Ross couldn’t investigate further because he had no evidence she did anything wrong and no one but Rhodes can testify she was even there that day.” She took a long sip from her mug.  
  
”Okay, good.” Steve nodded.  
  
Red turned a confused stare from Natasha onto Steve but he didn’t offer any explanation, and to be honest, Red could figure it out for herself by the look on his face.  
  
Sam and Steve both disappeared to get changed (not that Steve needed it) before he, Sam, and Natasha gathered in the living room crowding around the coffee table.   
  
”So, what’s it like being on the run again?” Sam questioned with a fresh shirt.  
  
”Like second nature only with more than one government breathing down my neck this time. New record.” Nat smiled.  
  
”We’re just lucky they don’t know about this place. And that you were able to get away in time.”  
  
Natasha nodded. ”Stark’s tried to reach out. I shut him down. I don’t think the Secretary of State would approve of me finding these.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a file, opening it over the coffee table and spreading out various satellite images taken from government files.  
  
Red leaned on the wall of the archway between the kitchen and living room, watching as the trio started studying the images and written files.   
  
”I’ve been tracking some movements in the Middle East. Terrorists smuggling Chitauri weapons across borders, enhanced scrambling around to avoid the Accords, all sorts of stuff going on down there after Vienna,” Natasha explained, handing over the pages of mostly blacked-out information to the boys.  
  
”There’s a lot of dirty stuff here.” Sam nodded, eyes squinting at the unhelpfully marked-up document in his hand.  
  
Nat agreed, ”There’s even more over there.”  
  
”We got a plan?” Steve asked, flicking through several pictures and undetailed papers.  
  
And that’s when Red started to drift out of focus from the conversation, still a little tired from her rude awakening that morning. For the past week, she’d been steadily recovering on the sofa and by that morning she felt back to what she would call normal. There’d been a little internal fuss this morning over a bad dream, waking up to the sun shining in her eyes through an unclosed curtain but she neglected to mention it when Sam and Steve left the house on their run. But it seemed the general consensus in the house that Red was staying and no one had brought up giving her a lift home since.  
  
”So the real question is how do three of the most wanted people in the world pull of any kind of heist in the Middle East without getting caught?”  
  
That question snapped Red back to attention. ”You’re leaving?” she aimed the question to the Captain who’d asked it with more than a little concern.  
  
”Maybe. Not yet,” he told her concerned expression that didn’t dissolve or even twitch at his reassurance.   
  
That moment was when Steve seemed to remember that Red wasn’t a soldier, or a spy, or a veteran best friend happily following him into whatever random danger he’d decided to walk into that week.   
  
She may have been here following them, but he couldn’t treat her like the others. He also had a feeling she would argue if he said that out loud.  
  
Sam saved him from saying anything of the sort by jumping in, ”Oh, Nat, you gotta play cards with this girl. I’m willing to be she’ll whoop even your ass.”  
  
”You remember what happened last time you wanted to bet in the game, Sam,” Steve reminded him, trying to dismiss his lingering thoughts though he couldn’t dismiss Red’s linger stare on the back of his head as they both understood he was side-stepping her subtextual question.  
  
”Yeah, I bet massages against Barnes and Noble,” Sam grumbled, turning to the not-right-now-but-still-the-definition-of-a star-spangled man.  
  
”I told you not to bet.”  
  
”You told me you were telling the truth.”  
  
As the boys began to bicker, Natasha glanced over at Red, ”Should I even bother asking?”  
  
Red shook her head, looking tired of the boys already after only being back in the house a few minutes. Then her eyes trailed down to the plans laid out on the coffee table, brow furrowing as she recognised the images and maps. Her head tilted to the side, eyes squinting. ”You could take the train. That station there is the kind of place where no one cares who you are and don’t double-check security.” Sam and Steve paused to look over at her. Under the prompting gazes, she continued, “It was the train I took when heading towards where I met James. To be honest, everything around that area is dodgy. Perfect cover… I would think.” Red didn’t know all that much spy stuff, her only experiences from Bucky and from her (mostly fiction) novels.  
  
”What were you doing in that kind of place?” Steve asked as Sam picked up one page to study it closer.  
  
Red shrugged quickly. ”Exploring. There’s a good ice-cream cafe nearby, actually. If you don’t get mugged first.” She folded her arms, staring down at the maps a little bitterly.  
  
”Where did you get off the train?” Nat questioned and held out the page to her.  
  
”About there.” She pointed to a spot by the border.  
  
Nat looked up at the others. ”That’s where we’re heading,” she stated, and then squinted her eyes at the maps, clearly and correctly pronouncing the place’s name.  
  
Red’s face fell flat. ”I cannot for the life of me even begin to attempt to pronounce that. Or where I was heading before James made me go to Berlin.”  
  
”He _made _you go to Berlin?”   
  
Steve’s confusion made sense. She’d previously only said they’d decided to go together.  
  
”I was supposed to be heading straight through on that first train but he had me change course. In hindsight, he probably saved me a whole world of trouble by doing that. Although I think I caused him the same amount of trouble in return,” Red explained, mumbling the end part to herself.  
  
Nat, while Red was talking, rounded up the satellite images and laid them out more directly in front of the girl. ”Can you talk us through what you remember from the train journey?”   
  
Red flicked her eyes around the group from person to person, all three staring back at her expectantly. Red had never enjoyed being the centre of attention, mainly because it usually came with hateful stares and scornful words because of some perceived wrong she’d done, so it took longer than she would admit to anyone to convince her own mind this was a good thing.   
  
She was being asked for help. She could offer that help. She had purpose right now.  
  
Red focused on the maps, pulling anything and everything from memory that she could, pointing to the first printed page (the one with a coastline) and began to explain. “You could probably land the jet by this loading bay and then there’s a taxi rank just across the street…”


	42. File

The question of how three of the most wanted people in the world could pull off a heist in the Middle East without getting caught was answered within a week. Some strings pulled here, some pressure applied there, and by the next Monday Sam, Steve, and Natasha were packing their bags ready to board the jet.  
  
Steve hadn’t been on a real boat since the incident with the Lemurian Star. Following Red’s directions through the train stations and down to their target’s base of operations, one of them had managed to trip a silent alarm while inside and as local police moved in on the scene to arrest the workers and dealers there, the target escaped with his money and a platoon of guards loyal to the last.   
  
So, now, a brief detour in their travel plans later, they tracked the private yacht under the target’s latest alias down using the jet computer satellite and infiltrated via speedboat ready to apprehend the man.  
  
After Steve jumped out first (because no one could grab him fast enough to lecture him on how they should go together and how Steve should stop being a self-sacrificing idiot) and knocked out the nearby guards on deck before throwing them into the onboard pool, he radioed to the others. ”Deck secure. Nat, kill the engines. Sam, sweep the aft, I counted four more guards.”  
  
_”Understood.”  
  
”Roger.”  
  
”Uh, Captain?”_  
  
Steve’s boots squeaked against the deck as Red’s voice echoed unexpectedly into his ear. For a second he looked around, confused, before remembering the communicator he’d given her. It wasn’t on the same channel as the one he, Sam, and Nat were using together, Steve deciding it was safer that way.  
  
_”Is this thing… is this thing working?”_ Red’s mumbling voice rumbled in his ear as he ducked towards the door leading downstairs.  
  
”Red. What’s wrong?” he asked on her channel.  
  
_”I uh…”_ Red stalled, _“…have you finished reading Emma, yet?”_  
  
Steve nearly sighed in frustration as he descended the steps but held it back once he picked up something off in her tone. ”No, but you can have it,” he responded calmly, checking around the next corner that his way was clear before moving on.   
  
_”Thank you,”_ Red replied.  
  
”Anything else?” he prompted, then ducked under a fist swung his way, covering the guard’s mouth before slamming their head into a railing and laying the unconscious body by a wooden crate.  
  
_”Nothing else. Am I interrupting something?”_  
  
Steve approached the door at the end of the corridor, peeking through the small circular window and spotting his target before ducking behind cover again. Eight guards with a single gun each. Easy. ”Red, I might be old but I’m not stupid. What did you really call in for?” he whispered but kept his tone firm, getting the message across he wasn’t going to let her dance around it even if he was just a little busy trying to apprehend a suspected terrorist right now.  
  
It took her a few moments to respond. “_Just wanted to check-in.”_  
  
_”Guards down, outside deck clear,”_ Sam narrated over the second channel.  
  
”I’m sure Clint or Scott would love to come over and watch a movie with you if I asked, help keep you company,” Steve told her, trying to keep his tone light and undemeaning.  
  
_“I don’t need a babysitter, Captain.”   
  
_Clearly not working, then.  
  
Steve closed his eyes and dropped his head forward. ”I know,” he said, before remembering he was meant to be keeping an eye on his target and snapped his head back up.   
  
_“I’ll keep a bookmark in where you left off.” _  
  
_”Engine room secure. You found our guy yet?” _Natasha butted in on the opposite channel, overlapping with Red’s soft dismissal of any further concerns he may have voiced over her.  
  
”Found the boss on the middle deck. Eight more guards. Engaging,” he replied to Natasha and Sam, then doing a quick glance around to make sure no other guards had suddenly sprung up from overboard and one he was sure he was still safe in position, he replied with a ”thank you” on Red’s channel. Then a moment later he asked, “Red?”  
  
_”Yeah?”_  
  
”Its 3am over there, isn’t it?”  
  
_”…yeah.”   
  
_Steve could imagine her eyes downcast to go along with her small voice and he felt the smile that twitched threateningly at his lips. ”Go to bed, kid,” he ordered softly.  
  
He heard a sigh, but a lighthearted one.   
  
_”Aye, aye, Captain.”_  
  
The line disconnected.  
  
Steve glanced back through the window again, eyeing his target before taking a step back to brace and breaking the door down in one swell kick.  
  
  
  
Turns out their target was a squealer. Seeing the now internationally wanted Captain America, Falcon, and Black Widow knock down his door and put his eight guards down before he could draw his own gun put the fear of god into his heart and he spilt everything they wanted to know. So a two-day trip turned into four, and then into a week as they caught a lucky break chasing a paper trail involving an undercover government group allegedly rounding up enhanced individuals to detain without trial or sell back to the UN for registration and incarceration.   
  
It seemed as though after the Accords, mutants were the new cocaine in the trafficking ring.  
  
They kept in touch with “Base Camp” as Sam had taken to nicknaming Red’s position holding down the fort back home. It was brief conversations at best, just updates, nothing lengthy. Steve felt at least a little guilty he kept having to tell her they’d be longer, Sam just rattled off a list of good nearby food places Red could go if she needed and Natasha went through security protocols should anyone knock on the door because everyone loved to keep the conversation light and casual.  
  
So, by the time they’d hit the jackpot one day into the second week and managed to escape a facility with paper files in hand, the trio was just happy to have gotten a lead and be out and back on the jet ready for a long nap. There was only one problem. Once they’d settled into the jet and were notifying Base Camp they were on their way home, Steve decided to double-check the files he’d snagged on his way through a firing squad.   
  
The files were scrambled end-to-end. As they were, they were unreadable, but Steve didn’t mention it until they touched down in the backyard that night and Sam asked what was on the file. Steve handed it over without a word, and Natasha leaned over Sam’s shoulder to look at the mess that was the spoils of their mission.  
  
Natasha explained it was encrypted.  
  
Sam made a face at the file as he took out his keys to open the front door, comparing it to the Blue Screen of Death he would get when his computer crashed.   
  
Natasha told him he was wrong.  
  
Sam said, just slightly over the edge of defensive while sticking the key in the door, that he was right and they must have known we were coming, and so gave them fake files to waste time trying to figure out something that doesn’t really mean anything before realising they’d been duped.  
  
Steve took the file off the disgruntled pilot as the front door opened, the smell of fresh toast and eggs wafting gently through the air.  
  
”Red?” Steve was the first to call out for the girl as the trio filed into the house.  
  
”Here.” Red appeared from the living room with a book in one hand, not slow enough for everyone to not notice her slipping the pocketknife back into her coat with the other. Then she furrowed her brow at them all. “You guys don’t look so good,” she said carefully.  
  
”Well, it’s been a long day,” Steve replied with a tired smile.  
  
Red gestured to the kitchen with an apologetic shrug. ”There’s food on the counter, nothing amazing though. I’m a better baker than a cook.”   
  
And so the evening went with breakfast for dinner, using up all the hot water, and sleeping like the dead through the night. Red was almost surprised when she wasn’t the first one awake the next morning but Sam just politely waved to her when she flipped over on the sofa and started reaching for her pocket watch out of habit. She put it back down, heading upstairs to get changed before joining the rest for breakfast.  
  
It was later in the day following an ‘interesting’ round of cards between the four in which Sam was convinced Red and Nat were conspiring against him when the matter of the strange files was addressed again.   
  
Nat flicked the card folder closed with a defeated sigh, holding her cards close to her chest with the other hand. ”I give up. Sam, you were right.” She pushed the file she’d been scrutinising throughout the whole game on top of kicking the boys’ asses alongside Red to the centre of the table.  
  
”What?” Sam looked up from his own cards and his not-so-subtle whispers towards Steve about teaming up against the girls as Red picked up another card from the deck.  
  
”This isn’t encrypted. It’s just a mess,” Nat declared, placing a card down on the upward-facing deck.  
  
”No, I got that. What I wanted you to repeat was the part where you said I was right.”  
  
”Don’t get smug now, Wilson.”  
  
Red was staring down at the mysterious file she’d been hearing all about since the team got back laid out on the table. She had and also followed through on the curious impulse to reach for it, flicking it open and scanning the contents.  
  
_”**RTQLGEV: UEQVQOC   
  
Rtqlgev: Ueqvqoc jcu vjg rtkocta qdlgevkxg qh rtqvgevkqp cpf tgiwncvkqp...”  
  
**_Red’s brow drew, her eyes squinting at the text on the page. A faint sense of deja-vu echoed in the back of her mind at the strange letters but she couldn’t quite put her finger on why.  
  
”You alright?” Steve asked, noticing her interest as Sam and Natasha were going back and forth with Sam’s smug sense of self-righteousness and Natasha’s increasingly dangerous threats including normally harmless kitchen utensils.  
  
”Yeah, just curious,” Red answered with a shrug, dropping the file back to the table, dismissed but not forgotten. Then she splayed out her cards face-up on the table. “Also, I win.”  
  
”Motherfu-!”  
  
  
  
Sam was surprised when he wasn’t the first one awake the next morning, wandering into the kitchen and pouring a drink to do a double-take at the sofa where Red sat up pouring over the scrambled files like her Red Riding Hood book. He didn’t point out it was a fruitless venture, seeing she was completely engrossed and decided she was having fun, beginning to prepare breakfast without another thought on it.  
  
After breakfast, Steve, Natasha, and Sam were still sat at the kitchen table making idle chat when Red appeared in the archway. ”Um, guys?” she asked quietly and the trio turned to her instantly. She cleared her throat and held something out to the closest person. “You might wanna read this,” she told Sam as the man took the folder from her hands and flicked it open, laying it out on the table for the rest to see, and spotting the new addition laid on top of the first scrambled document - an A4 page scrawled in smudged pencil.  
  
_**”PROJECT: SCOTOMA  
  
Project: Scotoma has the primary objective of protection and regulation...”**_  
  
”You decoded the file? How?” Nat asked, shuffling closer and furrowing her brow at her handwriting.  
  
”Yeah, I thought Nat said it was nothing,” Sam said, the creeping feeling he would have to deal with Natasha’s own smug smile at being proven right growing ever more imminent as he scanned through the translation.  
  
”When I picked it up yesterday, the way it was reminded me of an old book series about a school for spies I used to read. I had to dig through my reading app but I found them and one of the chapters in the -thankfully- first book was dedicated to teaching a class encryption and listed a few methods. So, I looked them up, and according to the internet its a Ceasar cypher,” Red explained quietly, looking to be struggling with herself somewhere between being proud and being embarrassed. “You move the letters over a certain amount of places and substitute them. For example with this it’s a two-letter cypher encryption, so the A’s becomes C’s, and the B’s becomes D’s, and so on..” She made small hand gestures in a winding motion which Steve found adorable on some level.  
  
”Red, that’s genius,” Steve told her.  
  
She looked at him for barely a moment, but he saw her big eyes filled with a gleaming pride at his words before it disappeared like a flickering flame and her eyes moved away. ”The internet did most of the work. You’d be surprised what you can find online nowadays if you know what you’re looking for,” she replied, the cute moment replaced by a dismissive shrug that stood out to Steve like a wrong note in a ballad. Then Red was rubbing the back of her neck, looking to the side. “I kinda wish I hadn’t now though, reading what they’re doing to people.”  
  
Steve glanced to Natasha and Sam, Sam’s face growing more and more disturbed and even Natasha couldn’t mask the scrutinising look in her eyes as she scanned the translation for information. If they were disturbed by the contents, he could only imagine what Red felt like translating it piece by piece.  
  
”Are you okay?” he asked carefully.  
  
She hesitated, then shrugged again. ”Yeah, yeah. I’ve read worse stuff before.” (_Most of it fiction but it could still get pretty dark, _she reasoned.) “I… think I’m gonna take a nap.” She gestured to the living room area. “Wake me up if you need me.”  
  
Steve watched her walk into the living room and curl up on the couch, lying flat and curled up with a cushion clutched to her chest.   
  
When Steve took his eyes off the fragile girl, they met directly with Romanoff’s who was looking at him over Sam’s shoulder. After a second of establishing this eye-contact, she nodded her head over in Red’s direction. Steve shook his head back, but Nat only stared pointedly and nodded her head in Red’s direction more firmly.  
  
Not stupid or brave enough to defy the assassin’s silent order, the Captain left his teammates mulling over the new information to instead approach the resting girl who once he was close enough he realised her eyes were still open. So much for naptime.  
  
He crouched down in front of the sofa beside her head. ”That was pretty cool what you did with the file,” he said with a smile, hoping to see the bright look in her eyes again.  
  
”Like I said, internet.”  
  
A blank stare at the ceiling and a tighter grip on the cushion.  
  
Steve worried at the inside of his lower lip before continuing his questioning. ”Is everything okay? You’ve seemed a little out of it since we got back.”  
  
Red didn’t talk for a long stretch and Steve considered giving up before she finally opened up, ”I’ve been reading more of James’s notebooks and the reading is getting… intense. I know that sounds dramatic but it’s just a lot to wrap my head around, I guess. I had to stop reading at some point because it’s just-” She squirmed a little, itching her neck uncomfortably before glancing at Steve. “I’m sure you can imagine.”  
  
Steve could imagine. He knew. Or at least, he knew enough. And knowing enough he knew not to push too much on the subject or else they might both fall into the same gloomy mood.  
  
”How was _Emma_?” He changed the subject, not caring how obviously clear it was what he was doing.  
  
The corner of Red’s mouth curled up at his attempt, but she played along as if she didn’t notice. ”I didn’t get past the first chapter. I got distracted. You can have it back,” she said.  
  
Steve shook his head gently. ”It’s fine. I might not have time now we know most of what’s going on.”  
  
Red rolled her bottom lip between her teeth as she considered that. ”Scotoma. “Blindspot”. It’s clever,” she hummed in acknowledgement.  
  
Steve glanced back towards his teammates who seemed to be already formulating a plan and getting to work on the other files still lying around now they knew what they were doing. And in a moment of boldness, he decided to ask what he’d been wondering since the trio had stepped foot in that train station at the start of this whole mess. ”Why did you take that train through that area?”   
  
Red visibly tensed.  
  
Steve continued, “It’s practically no man’s land. Crime running rampant, gangs owning the streets, the kind of place where no one knows your name unless you can get them something you can’t get elsewhere. Why would you be out there?”  
  
”Is it really important?”  
  
”Well, no, but-”  
  
”Then _don’t ask_.” Her words were sharp like her knife, a sudden switch from the tired and unenthusiastic tone from a moment ago, so much Steve nearly flinched but kept his cool. She grumbled, squirming again before sighing out just as sharply. “Now, can I go back to sleep, please, Steve?” she demanded, flipping over so her back was facing him.  
  
”If you’re in danger-”  
  
”I’m not.”  
  
”You can talk to us, Red. We would protect you,” he promised her.  
  
The girl didn’t respond and Steve decided that was all he was going to get out of her, or otherwise risk her shutting him out completely. He ran his hands over his face, letting out a long breath before looking at the mess of brunette hair shielding her expression. He shook his head, gently patting her upper arm, too caught up in thinking about his next move with Sam and Nat to notice her curling up further at the touch. He made it all the way to the archway separating the living room from the kitchen before he heard a hesitant _”Why?”_ whispered back to him.  
  
For Steve, the answer was easy. ”We’re you’re friends, aren’t we? That’s what friends do.”  
  
Red failed to respond, and that was okay with Steve since he felt like his message was clear, instead turning back to Natasha and Sam to set up the next stage of their plan.   
  
Red was left on the sofa curled up with the cushion in a vice grip, the words echoing in her head. She had friends now. Not that she didn’t have friends before. But her friends from before weren’t her friends now… were they? Would they still answer if she texted? Would they pick up if she called?   
  
Red felt around her jacket for her phone, pulling it out and going into her contacts. She stared at the list, small but suitable, as she looked at all the names she’d neglected and forgotten. Her thumb hovered over the oldest, the most meaningful, the most understanding, but her thumb stayed hovering until the screen went black with lack of touch.   
  
She dropped the phone with a shaking hand, folding up with the pillow clutched to her chest, fingernails digging into the material nearly deep enough to tear and chewing harshly on a corner, anxiety boiling in her stomach as she squeezed her eyes shut.  
  
_Coward._


	43. Melody

Steve wasn’t unused to the nightmares that plagued his dreams, but they were just uncommon enough that they became increasingly difficult to shake off after he woke up. Even now, sat up against the headboard of the guest bed, he could feel the prickling feeling of ice on his skin, the sticky cold sweat covering him an icy tundra on his thrumming body.  
  
He breathed it out, forcing his heart to calm down. _They were just dreams._ But they weren’t just dreams, they were his memories, his reminders of his failures, and his broken promises that had crumbled like pastry with his actions.  
  
His eyes stung, his throat was scratchy, but the lack of a Russian spy or pararescue agent busting through the door in a panic told him he hadn’t been screaming this time. He needed a drink. He couldn’t get drunk but the taste would be a distraction from everything else.  
  
Taking a minute to get his body to obey and still shaking off the after-effects from his dream, he padded his way out of his room and down the hall into the kitchen. Sam had mentioned a whiskey bottle under the sink he’d hated but couldn’t be bothered to get rid of since it was a gift so Steve figured he could drink that without repercussion and drew himself a tall glass. He could remember growing up when the stuff was prohibited, but by the time he was fifteen they’d given up and made it legal again.  
  
_”Good timin’ too,” Bucky had chuckled when Steve brought home the paper on the way back from school. “I just got a raise.” There had been a wicked gleam of familiar mischief in his eyes, and for Steve, that was one of the first real times he’d felt those fables butterflies in his stomach._  
  
The whiskey in the glass was gone, so Steve poured another. He can remember only one other time when he’d wanted a drink so badly - the night after Bucky fell from the train. Sat in the broken remnants of their pub, the lingering taste of smoke in the air as bitter as the drink he was swallowing.  
  
He couldn’t get drunk. He couldn’t forget. Not even for a few blessed body-numbing moments could he forget that moment.  
  
_It wouldn’t stop him trying though,_ he sighed as he swallowed another glass. The bottle had maybe one glass worth left now.  
  
A sniff that wasn’t his own disrupted his spiral of genetic self-hatred. He blinked, looking up from the counter and across into the living room to where he hadn’t even spared a glance in his quest for drink. Red was sat up, back facing him, curled up with a book in her hand, and when he squinted, he could make out it was one of Bucky’s infamous notebooks he’d heard so much whispering about.  
  
”Red?” he called out quietly.  
  
She didn’t flinch, having heard him enter but not bothering to disturb him having glanced the look on his face when he appeared.  
  
”Good morning,” she replied without turning around, soft and quiet as she carefully turned another page in the notebook with deliberate delicacy.  
  
Steve, still holding his empty glass, took a few steps forward and rested his free hand on the back of a kitchen chair. “Can’t sleep either?” he asked, knowingly.  
  
”Yeah. Got to reading.” She lifted and wiggled the book as evidence before returning to her previous position, legs folded underneath her while she sat up on the sofa.  
  
Steve nodded softly. ”How is it?”  
  
Red stayed quiet for a long time. ”I don’t really know how to answer that, Steve.” she replied, the hint of an awkward chuckle under her breath.  
  
”Of course. Sorry.” Steve looked away to the far wall, a little sheepish at his own question, and then back to the girl. Or the back of her head, at least.  
  
He spotted her blanket discarded on the floor by the coffee table, and so he walked over and picked it up without a second thought, folding it with one arm and settling it on the pillow she’d been using for her head. Only when he’d put the bundle of cloth down was he reminded of the noise that got his attention in the first place, a sniff, except this time it was much louder now he was closer. Glancing at the brunette and angling his head to try and see around her subtle movements to keep her back to him, he gently prodded ”Red?” And when she refused to acknowledge his call, he put own the whiskey glass and carefully reached out a hand to her shoulder, feeling her tense, before pulling her around with minimal resistance to see her face.  
  
”Red…”  
  
”I’m fine.”  
  
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that wasn’t true, and Steve sobered up immediately at what he saw. Her cheeks were pink and shiny with almost-dry streaks, making it obvious she’d been at it for a while, her eyes red-rimmed and glassy. She wiped them hastily with her sleeve when she noticed his expression growing increasingly concerned as his eyes scanned over her face with harsh intensity.  
  
His next words were soft-spoken and careful, “What’s the matter, Red?”  
  
The gentleness startled the brunette, Steve’s eyes not at all matching his tone. He looked as if he was ready to hit something (or someone) depending on whatever she was going to say next, but he sounded gentle and sweet and protective. The answer she had planned to dismiss him with rushed right out of her mind and replaced itself with the truth in a confusing instant.  
  
She cleared her throat gently. “James said that the notebook with all of his notes of Siberia was the worst one. Nope. Its definitely this one,” Red said, lifting the open notebook with her thumb marking only a few pages shy of the back cover.  
  
”Maybe you should stop reading.”  
  
”No,” she told him and held the book out of his reach when he tried to take it away, leaving Steve’s free hand clutching at air and a confused expression at her exhausted sounding refusal. She shook her head. “No. I promised. I promised I would read them all and still be here when he got back. I swore I would read every one and still think he wasn’t a monster.” She held the book to her chest protectively, fingers curling tight around the edges.  
  
”And I’m sure he won’t mind if you took a break from reading to breathe.” Steve moved to take the book again but she didn’t relent, she barely moved at all as she stared at him with tired red eyes holding the memories close He gave up and knelt back down beside the couch, one hand still gripping her shoulder as she hadn’t tried to remove it. “Do you want to talk about it?”  
  
She shook her head, but he could still see that haunted look in her eyes, a look he knew all too well by now. She definitely wasn’t going back to sleep anytime soon.  
  
Steve pushed up from the floor and settled onto the sofa beside her, facing the far wall same as her. They both sat there for a time, Steve couldn’t tell how long but long enough that when he swallowed to wet his throat he remembered the alcohol sitting on the kitchen counter. ”Do you want a drink?” he asked without much thought to it.  
  
Red turned her head, her expression pulling up into one of exaggerated shock. ”Never thought I’d see the day Captain America encouraged underage drinking.” The corner of her mouth curled up into a teasing smile, and Steve counted that as a win.  
  
”I’m not Captain America anymore. And I’m not encouraging, I’m suggesting, before I finish the bottle myself,” he replied truthfully, spying his empty glass still sitting on the coffee table waiting for a refill.  
  
Red hummed. ”Why are you up drinking at three in the morning, Captain?” she questioned, the fact that he was up and awake fully registering in her mind as strange now that her attention was away from haunted memories and lost life.  
  
Steve opened his mouth to answer but no words came out. He closed it again and sat back on the sofa, the whole situation sinking in properly for the first time since waking up. Now that he was thinking about it, his own problems seemed to have up and disappeared once he realised Red was awake and he hadn’t even noticed until now. No shaking, no memories, no stomach filled with regret of times never forgotten. It had all vanished in a blink even before he discovered Red was upset. He wondered whether she had the same effect on Bucky.  
  
Red tilted her head as she waited for his reply, but Steve stalled long enough she accepted she wasn’t going to get a real answer. “It’s okay. You don’t have to answer that,” she offered him an out, waving her hand to bat the idea away.  
  
Steve was thankful for that and said so. Red smiled and shrugged.  
  
”So, after drinking the rest of the bottle on your own, what are you gonna do? I know I’m probably not gonna get back to sleep tonight, even if I’m taking a break from trying to understand yet another wolf in my life.”  
  
Steve’s brow drew at her wording but he didn’t comment, keeping the thought to himself. But he knew he probably wouldn’t be getting back to sleep either, regardless of how much whiskey was downed or left alone.  
  
He glanced over by the door where everyone’s coats were hung up neatly in a row above the shoes Sam insisted they leave there too.  
  
”I’m gonna take a walk.”  
  
  
The area Sam lived in was reserved and secluded which drew many advantages for a group avoiding the eyes of the law. It was also the kind of area that was quiet at night, all business shut by ten, no loud parties till the late am, and unless under specific circumstances residents were very unlikely to notice an ex-Avenger supersoldier wandering around the streets before sunrise.  
  
Steve breathed in the night air, brisk but gentle not unlike Brooklyn, but there was something distinctly missing that reminded him he wasn’t truly home. He’d begun to think recently he never would be home again - even if he stepped foot back in Brooklyn, it would be different. Ever since he woke up he’d been told different was good, so why didn’t it feel that way?  
  
Red was walking alongside him, happily silent. She hadn’t said anything since they left the house and neither had Steve, they didn’t need to. A companionable silence that wasn’t broken until the cement street beneath their feet changed to a stone bridge overlooking a rushing river. Wordlessly deciding this would be a good place to stop, Steve and Red slowed until they both were leaning on the parapet overlooking the water, sharing a deep breath in and a sheepish giggle when they let out a simultaneous sigh.  
  
The river was loud but not distractingly so, grassy banks bracketing murky water that shone in the low light. Steve found himself wishing he’d brought his sketchbook along, just to sit by the river and commit the sight to memory with charcoals and chalks, messy fingers and dusty clothes would be a familiar byproduct of such endeavours. He could hear Bucky’s scolding voice in his mind about leaving his art supplies all over the apartment and an angry sea blue stain marking the wooden floor behind the front door for weeks afterwards. A smile twitched at his lips.  
  
His eyes followed the river flowing underneath the bridge, then up the stone of the bridge to Red standing mesmerised by the water, staring at the barely visible reflection below. Her hair was a thin curtain surrounding her face, but it looked much fairer with the moon than the sun, and her skin was markedly paler, her eyes standing out as deep as the water they stood above. He felt the impulse to draw change to her instead itch at his fingers, but unlike last time, this time it felt more like a need.  
  
”Did you know you pull the same face James does when he fuzzes out to think?” Red helpfully informed him, and he’d been too distracted to even notice she wasn’t staring down at the river anymore. Instead, she was staring at him with those dark eyes, and Steve was now noticing little flecks of silver within the green glittering when she blinked.  
  
”Sorry.” The Captain pulled his eyes off her and down to the river, shyly, barely registering what she’d said through the mild embarrassment.  
  
”Don’t be. I’ve come to associate it as a good thing. It usually means James is remembering something.” Red smiled and turned so she was facing him and not the bridge wall. She leaned against it instead. “So, if it means remembering for James, what does it mean for you?”  
  
Steve tried to think of any other thing to say than the truth. ”I was just thinking,” he finally excused. Red circled her hand in a “carry on” gesture with an encouraging nod. Steve smiled timidly and sighed, surrendering the truth. “I was thinking about drawing.”  
  
Red nodded and looked over the bridge. ”The valley is nice. You should’ve seen the view from the fire escape in Bucharest, it was amazing. Though I don’t think Bucky appreciated me dragging him out of bed at three in the morning to look as much as I would’ve,” she explained with a soft chuckle. Steve didn’t correct her on the subject of his drawing wishes. “There’s too much light pollution at home to see the stars properly.” She tilted her head back to look up at the sky, reminiscing.  
  
”You watch the sky a lot at home?” Steve asked.  
  
She nodded. ”I had a good view out of my bedroom window and the moonlight was enough to light up the pages I was reading. I like reading late at night when the house is quiet and everyone else is asleep, you feel like the only person left awake in the world. Its kinda trippy, actually.”  
  
“What do you like reading when you’re up that late?”  
  
”I like detective stories and fairytales as you know, but when its that late I don’t have a particular genre I stick to. It’s kinda my “read a book once” time of night, just scrolling through the internet or my reading app for something interesting. To be honest, by now I’ve “read a book once” on a lot of random stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise because of it; biomechanics, geology, politics, art...”  
  
Steve perked his head up. ”Are you interested in art?”  
  
Red tilted her head side to side. ”Never had the patience to learn but I’ve read about lesser-known artists from the 50’s to present day for a school assignment. Leonid Afremov’s entry caught my attention because of how his paintings always looked like reflections of light on rainy days. He’s actually the creator of my favourite painting to date.”  
  
Steve nodded along. ”What was it called?”  
  
”Melody Of The Night,” she answered with a smile.  
  
Steve squinted in thought as he rattled his brain to place the name with an image. ”I don’t think I’ve seen that one.” he said. He watched as Red reached into her pocket and retrieved her phone, and after barely -there hesitation on the home screen as her picture with Bucky came into view, she searched the internet and passed over the phone once she found what she was looking for.  
  
Steve blinked. ”[Wow](https://afremov.com/images/product/MELODY-OF-THE-NIGHT_2.jpg).”  
  
”I like the bright vibrant stuff.” Red replied with a one-shoulder shrug. Steve didn’t say anything else as he studied the image, prompting Red to ask, "What? Were you expecting me to say The Mona Lisa?"  
  
Steve looked away casually. ”Noooo…”  
  
Red snorted and took the phone back, sliding it into her pocket again with a huff. ”What kind of art do you do? Sketching, oil paints, life, abstract?” she questioned which seemed more like an interrogation and as if she was verbally poking at him for believing her lack of painting education.  
  
”It depends on the mood, really. Sometimes I’m drawing landscapes, sometimes I’m drawing people. Other times it’s trains, and on the rare occasion dancing monkeys.”  
  
”I’d like to see that.”  
  
Steve hummed. ”Pretty sure I lost that sketchbook a while ago, but I’m sure I could draw it again.”  
  
”Aw, for me?” Red giggled softly, and Steve definitely preferred that sound over her crying.  
  
He nodded, turning to look at the river same as Red, both standing in a contemplative quiet until Steve glanced back at her moonlit figure and asked ”Red?” a little hesitantly.  
  
”Hm.”  
  
He worried his bottom lip between his teeth as he formed his next thought, eyes remaining fixed to the water below. ”Would you ever- if I asked first obviously, would you ever consider letting me draw you?”  
  
Red looked back at him, the expression on her face clearly shocked, but then morphed into one of self-consciousness. ”I’m not really a good subject for drawings,” she mumbled.  
  
”Shy?” he asked, trying not to seem like he was pushing.  
  
She shook her head. ”I don't get a big kick out of looking at myself. Or being the centre of attention for a long time," she answered truthfully, then asked, “Why ask now?”  
  
Steve forced himself to look at her. ”I just thought it would be good practice but if you don't want to that's completely fine. I won't push it."  
  
Red was quiet for a long time, just staring back at Steve like a cautious animal, and suddenly Steve understood what Bucky meant when he’d mumbled about Red’s eyes being doe-like in his sleep. Red took a long breath in and leaned on the wall again. ”Tell you what, if you can either manage to find or draw another picture of a dancing monkey and show it to me, I’ll… let you draw me if you still really want to,” she said slowly and a little quietly, glancing down at the bridge below towards the end.  
  
Steve nodded, a gesture as gentle as the promise. ”Deal.”


	44. Thin ice

**The next morning…**

“The progress we are making so far is positive. By my calculations, Sargeant Barnes should be out of cryo-sleep and walking around again like a new man by the end of this year. And the chance of failure is decreasing more day by day as we work on it. There is no sign of deterioration.”  
  
“Thank you, Shuri,” Red thanked her with a nod of her head.  
  
Shuri’s projection from Steve’s phone on the coffee table nodded back with a casual smile. ”I will call if there are any more updates on Sargeant Barnes’s condition,” she promised, then her projection faded away as the call ended.  
  
There was a thick quiet in the room, Steve and Red on either end of the sofa staring where Shuri’s face used to be as Sam took up the armchair by the window and Nat leaned on the wall divider between the kitchen and living room.  
  
Sam cleared his throat, shifting a little. ”So, before the end of this year. That’s good,” he said since no one else was speaking up.  
  
Steve and Red nodded their heads but said nothing. The news was good. Bucky’s mind was making progress. It was a promise to see him again before the end of the year. They should have felt relieved, happy even, so why did it feel more like a deadline for disappointment weighing on both the supersoldier and bookworms’ shoulders?  
  
Sam stood up, clearing his throat again and picking up the card files laying just beside the phone, flipping them open. ”Nat had a breakthrough with the files, by the way,” he told them. “If we’re still going after that.” Sam gave a purposeful look to Steve, and after a moment, Steve gave the go-ahead nod and sat up a little straighter on the couch.  
  
“The files we decoded mention a main base of operations here,” Natasha marked the place on a satellite map. “All the transactions go through there, the enhanced their selling back to the government and the ones they're moving to other parts of the world for their “testing”.”  
  
The files had mentioned enhanced being “tested” and ranked for their enhancements, and the methods were nothing pretty. Red tried not to feel sick at the thought of only the first file.  
  
”If we take them out, we will send the rest of the group scrambling. It should also, in theory, cause the rest of their group to come out of the shadows long enough to strike them out when they attempt to look for a new provider to carry their cargo.”  
  
”What will you do with any enhanced you find in the building?” Red asked quietly from the side, arms folded and leant away from the three gathered around the coffee table.  
  
”Provided they aren’t hostile and if they are willing to come with us, I have some contacts I can ask to set them up homes with,” Natasha replied, and at Red’s shoddily hidden look of discomfort at the thought, she continued, “They can’t go back to where they were, if they have families they’ll be putting them in danger by returning home. It’s not the greatest option we have but its the safest option to trying to stop this altogether.”  
  
Red stayed quiet for a few long moments before shrugging. ”Okay,” she said, though she didn’t sound as if she agreed. It wasn’t her choice, anyway.  
  
  
The rest of the plan was explained and debated, and the three agents were back on the quinjet by the end of the week.  
  
This mission, unlike the last, lasted exactly how long they’d predicted, but it did not go as well as last times’ did. Luck and surprise had not been on their side this time, and when they came through the door four days later, August 18th, a Thursday, successful but not feeling like it, no one would have questioned it if they said they’d been dragged through the ass-end of hell backwards. Natasha’s face was dirty, Sam had a bruised cheek, and Steve had a split lip and deep cut across the bridge of his nose that if he wasn’t a supersoldier Red was sure would definitely scar.  
  
”You guys look much worse than last time,” Red sounded almost shy to say it even if it was plainly obvious there’d been a fight.  
  
”Rough mission,” Steve said. No joke, no reassuring smile, just plain and simple admission they’d been beaten and bloodied during the fight.  
  
”We won, though,” Sam, still ever the optimist, tried to chime in.  
  
Steve threw up his coat on the hanger by the door and breezed past Red, still in full uniform, and straight upstairs to his room.  
  
Red blinked at the behaviour, turning back to the Falcon and Spider.  
  
”He’s hasn’t said much since we got back to the jet,” Natasha explained as she began to take off her own gear, taking a seat in the kitchen and scanning through the files she’d snagged on the way out.  
  
“Best to leave him for a while,” Sam advised as he beelined to the kitchen for food.  
  
Red’s eyes flicked towards the stairs.  
  
  
  
Steve was lying on his bed, completely still and mind reeling over the mission, when the knock at the door came. He pulled his head up and made his face more agreeable for company before calling out a welcome. He expected Sam to come and check on him, maybe even Nat if she felt he needed a firmer kick in the ass, but it wasn’t them, and he couldn’t hide his surprise when Red poked her head in instead, and he had a sudden feeling of deja-vu from that night in Wakanda strike him.  
  
”Hey,” she greeted softly, almost cautiously. She cleared her throat, standing halfway inside the room. “Mind if I come in?” she still asked his permission.  
  
Clearing his face of the surprise, he gave her the best smile he could manage in his state. ”I’m not really the best company right now,” Steve replied gently.  
  
”Yeah, Sam said you might wanna be left alone but I just love jumping on thin ice.” She gave a self-conscious laugh before falling silent again.  
  
Steve realised she was waiting for either admittance or dismissal, and after dropping his head back onto the pillow with a sigh, he gave her permission and closed his eyes again.  
  
”Thank you,” she replied softly, the sound of the door shutting softly behind her in his ears before cautious footsteps edged their way over to the bed.  
  
The side of the bed Steve commandeered was the side opposite to the door, the side closest to the window. So, when Red approached the bed, she didn’t have to circle around it to sit and lie down.  
  
The Captain was still in his full uniform, not even having bothered to take off his dirtied boots before lying on top of the clean bedspread. (Red was sure Sam would appreciate that come next laundry day.) The only things currently missing from Steve’s outfit were his shield and his helmet, the helmet nowhere in sight and the shield given away months ago.  
  
His suit looked worse for wear from this close up to Red, small tears in the sleeves and legs and one large cut across the abdomen where someone had gotten lucky, but Red assumed they hadn’t been lucky for long if they’d gotten that close to a supersoldier who didn’t care about the rules anymore. Plus it didn’t look that deep.  
  
Red stopped staring, instead opting to stare at the ceiling instead. She could close her eyes but she wasn’t tired, having spent most of her time while the trio had been running around in the east sleeping and waiting for them to get back. And for a time it was just like that, both lying on top of the sheets, straight as soldiers, and silent as the dead. Red had to mentally slap herself when one part of her mind had jokingly suggested Steve actually was dead.  
  
”The bed is too soft,” he said after a while.  
  
”You could kip on the couch. I’ll swap with you,” Red suggested, turning her head to face him still with his eyes shut.  
  
”No, the couch is yours since you won’t take the bed because you’re weird,” he replied with a tired but light-hearted smile on his lips.  
  
She hummed. ”I’ve slept in a lot of weird places over the last couple of months, travelling without much thought to where you’re going often includes a lot of guesswork over accommodation,” she told him. “Did you see the two mattresses on the floor of the Berlin apartment?”  
  
”I did see that,” he confirmed, and the way he said it sounded like he’d actually given the idea some thought before now.  
  
”Both of us were too stubborn to take the couch. We actually slept straight on the floor for a couple of nights before buying the mattresses.”  
  
”That sounds like Bucky alright.” Steve rubbed his face with one hand. Or maybe he was quietly face-palming about the story, Red didn’t know. Though he was smearing dirt around his face from his glove whatever the reason.  
  
Red looked back up at the ceiling. ”I don’t think James ever liked sleeping in his own bed at the safehouse. He looked rougher more mornings there than he did in Berlin.”  
  
Steve stayed silent for a pause. ”In his notebooks…” Steve began, and Red already knew this was going to be an unpleasant question. “Did Bucky ever mention much about how they… altered him?” He worded the question carefully. “The methods they used, I mean.”  
  
If anyone else had asked her, Red would have said no immediately. But this was Steve, and Steve deserved the truth more than anyone, regardless of how uncomfortable it was to give. So she told him, ”James’ notebooks are scraps of memories scribbled together, and sometimes even the more coherent entries don’t even make sense, but I can pick up on the gist of things here and there. And yeah, he’s described the processes once or twice.”  
  
”Does he remember about the… machines they used?”  
  
Red held back her wince. ”He described a chair, he would be strapped into it and this large mechanical device would come down on his head and shock him. It would scramble his memories, push his own consciousness to the back of his mind, and leave him vulnerable to his own programming. Those ten trigger words he told us about repeat over and over on quite a number of pages.”  
  
Steve breathed in a long breath and let it out slowly. He opened his eyes. ”They had those machines, where we went. I saw them in one room, I _recognised _them, and I just…”  
  
Red glanced across when he trailed off, watching his body tense and his fists clench up by his sides, eyes burning into the ceiling with a fire she’d never envisioned he could hold. Red didn’t think she’d ever seen Steve angry before, she’d seen him defensive and adrenaline-pumped mid-fight sure but never _angry_. It was… kind of scary to imagine Steve angry in any shape or form.  
  
Demons tremble when a good man goes to war.  
  
She didn’t want to think about it.  
  
Red swallowed, looking down at his fists curled up by his side. Feeling her hand move before she could stop it, like an instinct left from her time with Bucky, she found herself cautiously reaching over to Steve’s side of the bed and her fingertips gently brush the knuckles of his gloves, so lightly she didn’t think he would be able to feel it.  
  
Steve’s head snapped to her, that fire in his eyes boring straight through her own eyes and into her skull and fuck, okay, she never wanted to be on the wrong side of that, ever. His burning stare rivalled Bucky’s own, and that was a feat in and of itself.  
  
The fire extinguished instantly when he saw her head flinch back in reaction, swiftly replaced by a silent apology and perhaps some slight confusion, because then his eyes were trailing down to where her hand was lying beside his. The confusion disappeared once he registered her attempted gesture.  
  
She watched his fingers twitch, an aborted movement to reach back for her hand, but they stayed resolutely where they were.  
  
Red took her own hand away wh ;en he didn’t say anything for long enough, body shifting a little uncomfortably on the bedspread, and clearing her throat.  
  
Steve continued to say nothing, returning to facing upward but not closing his eyes again.  
  
The two were left in silence again.  
  
Red debated whether or not to talk or leave it there, or perhaps even evict herself from the room - that was an option. In the end, however, curiosity won out as it usually did. ”Are you going to go to sleep in your suit?” she asked him.  
  
”I’ll change soon,” Steve responded with absolutely no intention to do so.  
  
Red nodded anyway. “Is it comfortable?” she found herself asking.  
  
Steve nodded his head side to side. ”More than some versions have been. This one actually has a zipper.”  
  
Red chuckled at that and kept the smile on her face when she saw one pulling at the corner of Steve’s mouth. “Are you going to keep it much longer since you’re not Captain America anymore?” she questioned, chewing the inside of her lip.  
  
Steve paused, giving it some thought. ”Until I find something that can hold up just as well, yeah. I may be a supersoldier but there are limits to even what I can do.”  
  
Red hummed. ”Maybe you could ask T’Challa or Shuri. They might even design you a completely different looking one since that’s not you now.”  
  
Steve thought about it again, gloved hands folding over his stomach. ”Bucky liked the first design best,” he mumbled, so quiet it could have passed as an accidental slip of his thoughts.  
  
”The “Star-Spangled Man With A Plan” version? That one wasn’t even armour,” Red complained with a furrowed brow.  
  
Steve’s head lifted off the pillow to look at her. ”How do you know?”  
  
”There are videos on YouTube,” she revealed happily, much to Steve’s obvious discomfort, wincing and letting his head fall back after recalling his own performances. Red smiled, almost a grin. “You wanna see them?” she teased.  
  
”No, I do not.”  
  
”You sure? There are some good remixes I’ve heard.”  
  
”I’m fine,” Steve insisted sheepishly, some part of his mind praying she was lying. But, so far, Red hadn’t exposed herself to be a liar about such things (unless it came to personal welfare in which case she avoided truth like the plague) so he didn’t hold out much hope on that front.  
  
He sighed, settling down into the covers of the bed as the rest of his thoughts about that time reeled further on. “You know, for the longest time, I’d dreamt about going overseas and being on the front lines, serving my country. Then that day I finally got everything I wanted… and I was wearing tights.” He smiled wryly. “Captain Showreel helping sell defence bonds with his films and songs.” One hand came up to pinch his nose and rub his eyes in a tired movement.  
  
”You have to admit, they were catchy.” Red nudged his arm with a little smile and he huffed softly, letting his hand fall back to his side again, the other still resting over his gut. Red considered her own thoughts, ”I really liked the suit you had during the whole DC thing. The navy one.”  
  
”The stealth suit.” Steve nodded. “Yeah. That’s been a favourite of mine.”  
  
”What happened to it?”  
  
”It got taken away. I had to steal the one from the Smithsonian,” he told her. He closed his eyes as he remembered. “It was on display there, just like the rest of the Howling Commando's uniforms. Sat there like trophies, like they didn't use to actually belong to real army men, like they didn't use to have dirt and blood splatters on them, like they hadn’t been mended and polished to be fit for public display.” The fingers on the hand lying on the bed gripped at the sheets beneath him, tense and irate. He took a few breaths before his hand relaxed and his eyes opened again, but his neck didn’t lose the same tension. “I’m glad they’re being honoured, that we’re remembered,” he said.  
  
“Everyone remembers Captain America,” Red responded and Steve nodded in agreement. She turned her head in his direction. “How many people do you think remember Steve Rogers?” she asked him.  
  
Steve’s head turned to her, momentarily startled into silence at the question. He blinked once, twice, and Red was still looking at him expectantly, as if she was really waiting for an answer from him. But he could see that hidden weight to her expression, the way her eyes (he discovered was becoming his favourite feature of hers) seemed to push past his plastered-on facade and burrow straight into his chest for the truth.  
  
He couldn’t think of an answer, or one that he didn’t just want to throw out to make her back off or throw away as a joke about how many people these days had his name, so he didn’t give her an answer.  
  
She hadn’t been looking for one apparently, turning her head back to face the ceiling like she’d left it at the statement before the question.  
  
”This bed really is soft. James would hate it.” she said, not even trying to gently segue into a change of subject but Steve wasn’t about to complain.  
  
Steve shifted awkwardly where he lay, eyes on the ceiling, flicking towards her once, then back to the ceiling. Unsure if it was an opening for him to add something, so he just hummed.  
  
“_“By the end of the year,”_ Shuri said. I might be twenty-one before he wakes up,” she mumbled distractedly.  
  
”Would you like to do something special for it?” he asked, already knowing the answer.  
  
”No.”  
  
”Fair enough,” Steve replied. “Sam’s is coming up next month,” he reminded her.  
  
”I wonder what he wants to do.”  
  
”Well, he’ll probably try to get Natasha and I drunk like last year.” Steve suggested, a smile slowly growing on his face. “Natasha drinks like a Russian, obviously, and I can’t get drunk so you can imagine how that ended; with Sam dancing to Single Ladies with a bottle of tequila on the pub table.”  
  
Red laughed, and Steve relaxed completely into bed, previous worries forgotten. “Well, I don’t drink so he can’t try that on me,” she said.  
  
”He’ll try. And when he does, run away. Quickly,” Steve advised softly, pointing a lecturing finger with a knowing chuckle.  
  
”Oh, the horror. Will you protect me, Steve?” she asked him with pouty lips and a babying voice.  
  
Steve’s chuckle faded somewhat, his smile faltering at the question. He knew the question was a joke, a tease, but for some reason (probably because Red had had him on edge already a few times today) it struck an odd chord inside him, and he found himself answering with more genuine honesty than he meant. ”Always,” he told her, looking straight into her eyes.  
  
Red seemed to sense the change in atmosphere, a small twitch of something passing through her features, but she said nothing of it and moved on as if she didn’t notice.  
  
”When’s Natasha’s birthday?”  
  
”I don’t know. In fact, I’m not sure she’s never told anyone,” Steve replied with a thoughtful hum. Then, quieter, “Bucky’s next birthday will be the first we’ve celebrated together since I lost him.”  
  
Red nodded softly, looking at the ceiling as she tried remembering when Bucky had told her his birthday was. She blinked and blurted, ”I just realised he had his birthday in March and neglected to mention it. I was with him in March. Admittedly we’d only just met but still.” She tapped her hands rhythmically on the bedsheets as she thought about it. “Think its too late to get him a belated birthday present?” she asked with a smile.  
  
Steve chuckled. ”Maybe you could make it a “Welcome Back” present.” _If he even remembers us_, he didn’t tac on but both heard it. “What would you get him?” he questioned out of curiousity, meanwhile thinking about his own gift.  
  
Red went quiet for a long time, seeming to really think about it, and then finally decided on, ”The “Mary Poppins” Soundtrack on his phone.” with a confident nod.  
  
Steve couldn’t have looked more confused even if she’d ripped her own face off like a Scooby-Doo villain to reveal Bucky Barnes underneath.  
  
Seeing this, the smile on Red’s face grew from small and polite into a mischievous smirk in one second flat.  
  
“Oh, do I have a story to tell you, Steve…”  
  
  
  
Red wasn’t sure when she’d fallen asleep, but she was aware that there were a few alarm inducing things she noticed when she woke up. Firstly, she wasn’t on the sofa for once, secondly, something was covering her but it wasn’t a sheet. She figured out she was on a bed, and whatever was covering her smelled of fresh laundry with something distinctly masculine. The third thing she noticed was the two voices whispering in the room and figured that was probably what woke her up.  
  
She froze on instinct.  
  
_”You both slept through dinner.”  
  
”Is it morning already?”  
  
”Yeah, you slept like a rock, man.” _  
  
She recognised Sam and Steve’s voices and relaxed but remained with her eyes closed.  
  
_”You doing alright?” _Sam continued to whisper.  
  
_”Yeah, I think so,”_ Steve replied, and Red thought he certainly sounded a lot better than yesterday.  
  
_”She alright?”_  
  
A pause. _”Yeah. I think so.”_  
  
Sam hummed. _”Well, breakfast is downstairs whenever you want it.”_  
  
_”Thanks, Sam.”_  
  
The door clicked shut.  
  
Behind her, Steve let out a long breath and the weight of the bed shifted but didn’t disappear. She cracked open one eye and glanced back at him rubbing his face with both hands before shutting it again.  
  
”Did you really sleep in your suit?” she asked innocently.  
  
The shifting weight froze. ”You’re awake,” he said.  
  
”I heard Sam.”  
  
”Sorry.”  
  
”It’s fine,” she shrugged it off deciding to get up, opening her eyes and sitting against the headboard. “You really okay?”  
  
Steve turned so his body angled to face her rather than the window. He nodded. ”Thanks. For last night,” he thanked her with a sleepy smile.  
  
”Would’ve done the same thing for James,” she answered. Steve inclined his head in silent agreeing.  
  
A pause.  
  
Red cleared her throat. “Right. Breakfast. Also, I really need a shower,” she rambled, quickly shuffling towards her end of the bed.  
  
”Before we go…” Steve caught her with one leg off the bed. “Check the pocket.” He gestured to her lap.  
  
If she were being honest, Red hadn’t really noticed (or perhaps she had noticed and just didn’t care) that the thing that had been covering her when she awakened and smelled like linens and a man was Steve’s own coat. It had been laid over her with care and now sat bunched in her lap. She smiled sheepishly when she registered he’d had to have gotten up to get it and put it over her, and reached into the inner pocket, feeling something thin and malleable, before pulling it out. She unfolded the piece of paper, viewing the image sketched out onto the page.  
  
She was quiet for a long moment, studying the picture [sketched ](https://cdn3.whatculture.com/images/2018/03/2e2572c3b05bd46b-600x338.png)for her, but a shy smile hung on her lips as she folded it back up again and her eyes stayed down. ”This means I gotta pose for you now, right?” she said quietly.  
  
”Not if you don’t want,” Steve told her.  
  
Red tapped the page against her palm. ”Breakfast first. And a shower so I can look a little more like an adequate model for you.”  
  
”You look perfect now,” Steve insisted immediately.  
  
Red met his eyes at the sudden response, and this time it was Steve who looked away. Her smile grew a little more genuine. ”With a bedhead reaching the roof and sleep in my eyes?” She knew what she looked like, running a hand through said bedhead to try flattening it.  
  
Steve shrugged minutely, making himself busy rearranging the pillows at the top of the bed and still not looking at her, but Red didn’t miss the gentle tinge of pink lightening his cheeks in the daylight flittering through the curtains.  
  
Okay, that was definitely still adorable.  
  
Still smiling because of his words, she picked up his coat and folded it before settling it on the bed and standing. “See you at breakfast.” She gave him a two-fingered salute and disappearing out of the door, leaving the blonde supersoldier cursing at himself and straightening the pillows a little harsher than necessary.


	45. Static

**September 23rd**  
  
Red made breakfast that morning, much to Sam’s confusion when he came into the kitchen at his normal time only to discover bacon already in the pan and the brunette whisking eggs a little haphazardly in too small a bowl, product of a miscalculation once she’d remembered just how many people lived in the house. She gave him a polite “Happy Birthday” before setting a plate in front of him and putting on the kettle for coffee.  
  
There was no big fanfare like there had been in Wakanda for Steve’s birthday. Sam’s was a much more casual affair, or as casual as it could be for an ex-pararescue turning forty-one. At least for the morning.  
  
As the others had come into the kitchen, Red noticed Natasha was wearing one of her own fitted shirts and jacket rather than a borrowed (read: stolen) shirt and hoodie combo from Sam and/or Steve, and Steve had changed into one of his nicer shirts and trimmed his slowly growing beard to a light stubble. She found it suited him, a nice change from the clean-cut image he normally projected.  
  
Red made a small throwaway comment about not having many nice things to wear when she saw the two, and Natasha had responded with an offer to go shopping together while pouring her coffee. Red had nodded politely with a quiet “sure” before turning to Steve, and Steve barely contained his laughter at the expression telling him how much that is something she _didn’t _want to do. He managed to keep it in with a cough and scooping the last of his bacon into his mouth.  
  
Steve did the washing up (after a minor argument with Red) and everyone settled down in the living room for gifts. Sam opened up a card signed by the three of them together and laughed with a “thank you” before opening the three neatly wrapped bundles on the coffee table. Natasha had picked him out a personal mug, Steve had wrapped him a bottle of aftershave, and Red had gotten Steve to buy her alcohol to give him since she was too young to buy it herself. Yes, that had been exactly as embarrassing as it sounded.  
  
After that, the morning crawled steadily onto lunch while everyone got back to their usually scheduled programmes. The luxury of going out for the day or that evening at least wasn’t one they could afford, they’d barely gotten out of the house for the gifts. The neighbourhood Sam lived in may have been peaceful and polite but it was hard to trust anyone following the Accords fallout. People were scared, rightly so. So they didn’t risk it.  
  
It was some time after lunch when Sam disappeared out of the room on a phone call. He returned less than five minutes later still on the call.  
  
”Thanks, man. Alright, see you soon.” He pulled the phone away from his cheek and swiped his thumb on the screen, sliding it into his back pocket. “They’ll be here in an hour.”  
  
At Red’s raised eyebrow after looking up from her book, Steve told her “Sam invited Scott and Clint over for drinks.” and Red had to take a few seconds to understand who exactly he was talking about. She didn’t say as much, and instead just nodded and returned to her story.  
  
  
As planned, there was a knock on Sam’s door an hour later. Sam opened it with a grin, beckoning his friends inside as they wished him happy birthday’s together. The shook hands with Steve and waved hello to Natasha before Steve was walking them over to the brunette stood awkwardly in the hallway.  
  
”Guys, this is Red. Red, this is Scott and Clint,” Steve introduced them politely with a smile.  
  
”Hey.” Clint waved.  
  
”Hey, nice to meet you.” Scott grinned.  
  
”You two too.” She shook each man’s hand in turn when they were offered. She also noted Clint carrying a case of beers which he set on the kitchen table and Scott holding two wrapped gifts, the paper it was wrapped in resembling that you would get for a child.  
  
”So, uh, Cap, when are Scarlet and Vis showing up?” Scott asked, setting down the presents on the coffee table.  
  
”They’re not. We promised to leave Vision and Wanda alone so long as they kept in contact,” Steve replied, shuffling them into the living room rather than standing in the boundary between rooms.  
  
Scott made a face. ”They couldn’t have snuck back down here for a day to celebrate with us? I mean, me and Clint managed to sneak out from our places and we’re on house arrest.”  
  
”You’re on house arrest?” Red asked, concern clear in her voice.  
  
Scott opened and closed his mouth, glancing at Steve who gave a nod to say she was okay.  
  
”That was the deal. After heading back from being rescued we cut deals so we could see our families and two years of house arrest is what we got, followed by three years probation. And if we get caught breaking that we get twenty years in prison, at least,” Scott informed her.  
  
Red’s eyes went wide.  
  
“Hey, it’s not so bad. A lot of people have got it worse now because of the Accords fallout what with the enhanced being rounded up and the registration and the classification and the danger/threat analysis. I mean, they put Wanda in a shock collar, though that was on the RAFT, and I’ve actually learned a lot being trapped like a bird. You know how hard it is to entertain a ten-year-old daughter when you can’t leave the house?”  
  
”Scott,” Steve coughed gently.  
  
Scott paused to see Sam shaking his head and waving a hand quickly in front of his throat as subtly as he could. Meanwhile, Red was making mental notes of reading up on the fallout since she’d only been focussed on Sam, Nat, and Steve’s situation so far, and looked just as disturbed as she did when she handed over the decoded SCOTOMA file.  
  
Scott got the hint, clearing his throat and bobbing his head. ”Well, I think I should probably get started on the beers before I put my foot in my mouth for the third time this afternoon. Anybody gonna join me?”  
  
An agreeing group cheer was the reply.  
  
  
Steve had occasionally joined in the conversation, adding little comments or anecdotes wherever he could and generally trying to give Sam a good birthday considering their conditions. Though he was sticking mainly to Red’s side for the most part and keeping an eye on everyone else that was drinking. Whether anyone noticed this, they didn’t say.  
  
Well, at least not up until about when Sam called out ”Red, come drink with us!” across from where Natasha was stood changing the music station to something with more of a dancing beat.  
  
”Steve…” Red said warily with a matching expression to the blond beside her who had to fight off a smirk in response.  
  
”What? You’re among responsible adults here,” Clint added into the mix, doing his best to seem genuinely wounded while swaying ever so slightly on the spot.  
  
Red leaned closer to Steve to mumble, ”I count three responsible adults in the room and one of them is me.”  
  
Steve snorted into his drink.  
  
”What are you two giggling about?” Sam asked accusingly with narrowed eyes.  
  
”Nothiiiiing,” Red sang back far too sweetly with a cute smile.  
  
The room managed to return to a quiet lull for maybe a minute before Sam spoke out again. ”Let’s play cards.”  
  
”You are obsessed with cards,” Natasha groaned.  
  
”I got a cool card trick, anyone wanna see it?” Scott asked, standing up off the sofa and picking up the deck from the coffee table. “You like magic, Red?” He turned to the girl, sliding the cards out and starting to shuffle them.  
  
”Who doesn’t?” She shrugged nonchalantly but Steve noticed that childish spark in her eyes as she observed him.  
  
”Ready? Ready? Watch this.” He held out one hand to the side ready, paused, then flicked his wrist so [a card appeared](https://64.media.tumblr.com/01707c01874ce42a7ecfced9622b1e2b/tumblr_pjs4oq40TY1v3ax52o3_r1_540.gifv). “Tah dah!” he trilled, showing the Ace to everyone in the room before holding it between the fingers of one hand. “You know, the key to a good magic trick is and has always been-” He clicked his fingers and the [card’s face changed](https://64.media.tumblr.com/aafaf472f5e9c6af20aade2f5a08f14c/tumblr_pjs4oq40TY1v3ax52o6_r2_500.gifv) from an Ace to a Six. “-misdirection.”  
  
There was a scattering of applause that time, Red’s the most enthusiastic, and he did a little bow for added effect.  
  
Suddenly he put his hand to his stomach, puffing out his cheeks. ”Oh, oh, I think I might have had one too many- bleeeegh.” He reached up and a stream of cards appeared to be [pulled from his mouth](https://64.media.tumblr.com/cb1c7af280aaa03ac2b73cfbe30bea20/tumblr_pjs4oq40TY1v3ax52o2_r1_500.gifv). He held them up to show his audience, looking specifically to Red for approval who was grinning brightly.  
  
”That’s cool but I’m not touching them now,” Sam said, pressing his lips together with a grossed-out hum.  
  
”Meh. Not bad but meh,” Clint offered. At Scott’s scoff, he rolled his eyes and stood up. “Look, I grew up in the circus, I’ve seen basically every trick known to man.”  
  
Scott slid the cards back in the pack and tossed it over to him. ”Alright, your turn then, Arrow Guy.”  
  
Clint caught the pack easily, sliding them out and shuffling. ”Watch and learn from the master, Shrink Man.”  
  
The next ten minutes then consisted of a back-and-forth challenge between the archer and the ex-thief trying to one-up each other on varying card tricks.  
  
Yeah, that _actually _happened.  
  
It was kind of impressive in a way, Scott being able to show off his tricks to people other than family and Clint using his past in a more positive manner than he was used to. At some point during this Sam even managed to be persuaded into the game and performed the classic _“and is **this **your card?”_ (it wasn’t but it was the guy’s birthday so let’s pretend it was)trick, and it was exactly as nerdy and theatrical as it sounds. Red, having been the only one watching with any real interest, had been declared the official judge in their little tournament around halfway through and Red found that, for once, she didn’t mind being the centre of attention like that.  
  
  
The evening flowed much easier than the afternoon. Games were played with a lot of nitpicking, songs were sung happily off-key, and Sam got that fated card game he wanted. He was also very, very pouty come dinnertime when Clint, Nat, and Red kept winning all the rounds. Steve tried to console him with a shoulder pat and Scott wordlessly handed him another beer. Dinner was ordered from a nearby takeout and polished off with a dessert of birthday cake that had been hidden in Steve’s room for safety.  
  
By the time they’d finished and were back in the living room turning the club-esque music up louder, the street lamps were lighting. Between the thumping music and a group of ex-heroes late into the afternoon lowering their inhibitions, Steve and Red were left standing by the kitchen table sharing non-beers and watching the others bounce around like age was just a number and time was a social construct.  
  
In short, the team were drunk. Or at least very tipsy. Red couldn’t tell.  
  
”Is this what parties are usually like?” she asked curiously, observing the scene of adults laughing and dancing together in carefree harmony, as if they hadn’t spent the last few months surviving instead of living.  
  
”Among friends. At least this is what it’s usually like from my experience,” Steve replied, wincing as Scott stumbled into the coffee table and cursed up a storm while Clint laughed. “At least now I’m not standing in the corner awkwardly all the time… current moment excluded,” he said, looking at their stake halfway across the room from the main crowd.  
  
Red could relate. ”Never been a social butterfly, then?”  
  
The blond shook his head. ”Even after I came back I couldn’t quite get a handle on being involved in social functions. Tony never failed to mention how uncomfortable I looked standing alone at each of his many charity balls, at least once the rest of the team had abandoned me.”  
  
Red’s heart sank a little at that. ”I’m sure you had a lot of admirers to talk to. Maybe even share a dance with.”  
  
"No one that approached me was really looking for small talk, just questions I’ve had asked and answered over and over again, or a not-so-subtle invitation into someone’s bedroom. But I don’t want to turn anyone away because I don’t want to be that guy - an old bitter war hero whining about how the good old days were better, because they weren’t. So, I just smile and nod and try to answer their questions as concisely as possible and decline the more lewd offers I’m made. Occasionally I would get asked to dance but after waking up it’s just not had the same appeal.”  
  
Red digested his words and Steve took another sip of his drink.  
  
Someone from the adult crowd yelled about how much they loved this song.  
  
”What was it like before? How did the younger Steve Rogers handle parties and dancing?” she asked softly.  
  
”In short, he didn’t,” Steve answered. “Asking a girl to dance had always been terrifying to me. Bucky, on the other hand, was the complete opposite, able to get any girl to pay attention to him in a heartbeat with a smile and cheesy pick-up line. In fact, he often got himself into trouble by flirting with the wrong girl and getting us kicked out of whichever bar for roughhousing." He chuckled softly in remembrance, and then his eyes slid down to the varnished floor. "People weren't exactly lining up to dance with a guy they might step on."  
  
Red had seen what Steve looked like before the serum, and to her, it was hard to believe no one wanted him. A bit on the skinny side and shouldn’t have really ever been leaving the house with his list of pitiful ailments but he was handsome even then.  
  
”Bucky was happy to dance with you. He taught you, he said,” she remembered.  
  
Steve chuckled, taking a swig of his drink. ”He tried.”  
  
Red smiled at the mental image that conjured. ”I’m sure whoever was in those dance classes Mr Stark inducted you into were happy to dance with you.”  
  
”They were happy to dance with Captain America. Not Steve Rogers,” he answered, looking at her now instead of the others.  
  
Those words rang loud in her mind. She didn’t realise Steve had thought much about that conversation since they hadn’t talked about it after she left to shower, similar to how the whole posing for Steve to sketch her thing had also been quickly forgotten.  
  
Red snapped herself out of the thoughts and nudged his arm with her elbow. ”Well, that’s their loss, I’m sure,” she told him, trying to brighten the mood.  
  
Steve’s smile returned, if somewhat sheepishly. ”You wouldn’t be saying that if you saw me dance,” he told her, head ducking the slightest bit.  
  
Red hummed in thought. She cast a glance over at the others still partying happily to the latest top hits of the summer before grinning with an idea.  
  
”Go on then.” Red nodded to in front of them.  
  
Steve raised his brow, following her line of sight to the empty space on the floor.  
  
“I want to be the judge of that. If you’re so awful, show me,” she continued prodding, leaning back on the kitchen table and folding her arms.  
  
Steve huffed and shook his head. ”Not gonna happen.”  
  
”Why?”  
  
”It’s just not.”  
  
”Yeah, but why though?”  
  
”Because I don’t need help embarrassing myself in front of you.” Steve crossed his arms with a grump.  
  
”Pleeeease?” Red whined at him with a wobbly bottom lip and giant doe eyes. Steve would never admit it to her face, but he’s almost one hundred percent sure he’d let her get away with murder if faced with that look.  
  
And so he gave in, setting down his drink and moving a few paces to the open space. After some hesitation and some further lip wobbling from Red, he began swaying his upper body in a somewhat graceful manner and shuffling around in his place, shifting from foot to foot.  
  
Red tried stifling her giggles at first, but after a few seconds she recognised it as a fruitless venture and moved her hand away from her mouth, unmuffling.  
  
Steve gave a grunt and stopped. ”I’m usually with a partner,” he excused, and cursed his Irish heritage that made his cheeks tinting with embarrassment so clear to see. And Red was still giggling which didn’t help.  
  
Arms folding, he put on as stern a face as he could manage while she was still laughing at him. “Alright if you think it’s so funny, why don’t you show me how it’s done?”  
  
Her giggles stopped. ”Oh no. I already said I can’t dance.”  
  
”As I recall Bucky said you’d _never _danced. That’s different.”  
  
Red’s struggled for an answer to that, face going through a few different emotions before settling on resigned defeat. ”Fuck,” she muttered softly, looking away, earning a laugh out of Steve. She folded her arms over herself. “I don’t wanna,” she said quietly, unable to meet his gaze.  
  
”Please? For me?” Steve asked softly, trying to catch her eyes as her head tilted down.  
  
She glanced back up. “This will not end well,” she advised him.  
  
”If we’re both that bad, maybe we’ll cancel each other out,” he joked.  
  
”Or, more likely, the planets will align for one supermassive catastrophe.”  
  
”Red…” Steve said softly, head tilted.  
  
The girl stared at him, then at the others who, to be honest, she thought both Steve and her could disappear now and none of them would notice. So maybe dancing together was a fairly safe bet. Shoulders slumping in defeat, she shuffled over a few steps so she wasn’t in danger of hitting anything.  
  
”I don’t really…” Red mumbled, starting a simple side-stepping motion.  
  
”You’re doing better than me already,” Steve offered back, doing exactly the same but going one step further and swaying his upper body too.  
  
”No, I can’t.” She shook her head and covered her eyes. “I’m just getting prom flashbacks.” She shivered.  
  
”Not a fun time?” Steve asked.  
  
”No, it was fun, I just… I was mainly dancing- swaying really, on my own in a corner for most of the songs. I went without a date.” Red folded her arms over herself.  
  
”So you’ve never danced with someone else either?”  
  
A headshake. ”Nope. Wouldn’t have wanted to anyway, all the boys at my high-school were dicks. As were most of the girls for that matter. Probably why they were all hooked up with each other, their dickishness levels evened each other out.” It was an attempt at humour and Steve had the manners to keep any pity out of his smile. “What about you? Good prom?”  
  
”They weren’t like they are today, and Bucky set me up with this one girl who really wasn’t interested in anything other than making her ex-boyfriend jealous. It worked in her favour, she was back with him halfway through the night and I was left waiting for Bucky to finish romancing Alice Miller from biology since he was my ride.”  
  
”Did you at least get a dance first?”  
  
”Nope.”  
  
”Sucks to be us.” Red shrugged like she didn’t care.  
  
Steve rolled his tongue against the inside of his cheek, thinking. ”Humour me,” he said and held his hand outstretched in an offering.  
  
”You wanna dance together? You did hear what I said about my lack of dancing experience?”  
  
”We can just sway. But I think everyone should have the experience, right?” He wasn’t going to push it if she didn’t want to, but deep down he really hoped she wouldn’t say no.  
  
Red rolled her lip between her teeth. She couldn’t deny her curiosity, and it helped that Steve wasn’t a dickhead like her classmates, he was a nice guy who had repeatedly told her he cared about her. She’d been faced with harder choices.  
  
Red nodded and she reached out and took his hand, much to Steve’s surprise and delight. ”So we just… sway or whatever?” her tone wavered, betraying her nerves.  
  
”If that’s what you’re comfortable with,” Steve replied, ever the gentleman.  
  
Red, clearing her throat, carefully placed one hand on his shoulder like she’d read many of her characters do in dancing scenes, and Steve slid his hand onto her waist, relieved when she didn’t flinch at his touch. They stood a few steps apart, finding a rhythm to sway to that was completely out of step with the peppy techno flowing from the other side of the room.  
  
Red had to angle her neck back slightly from this close to see his face.  
  
”I’ve just noticed how tall you are,” she said a little dumbly.  
  
”6’0.”  
  
”Frickin’ hell,” she breathed with a laugh. “I mean, Bucky’s almost the same but… frickin’ hell.”  
  
Red tried to look at Steve while they danced but that also meant he was looking straight back at her, and the feeling of self-consciousness burrowed its way through her eyes and into her mind, making her look away with a small cough.  
  
It was a few seconds later when Steve broke the almost-silence. ”You alright?”  
  
”Well, nothing has exploded. Yet.” Red laughed a little uneasily.  
  
There was a beat of silence that cut through the room before the next rock number blasted through the speakers and echoed through into the kitchen. A quick glance to the others showed no one had noticed them yet.  
  
Red soon picked up on another noise filling her ears. It was soft, airy, but with a rhythmic flow. She turned an inquiring gaze on Steve before she realised he was humming and his eyes were on his shoes. And after a minute of listening, she recognised the song. _I won’t dance - Fred Astaire._ She chuckled at the irony.  
  
The chuckle had Steve’s eyes flicking back up again and his humming stopped.  
  
Red pouted at the loss. “Noooo. I like that song.” It had been one of her favourites of her father’s vinyls.  
  
Steve regarded her for a moment, then his mouth curled up at the corners and he picked up the tune again.  
  
Red’s pout was replaced with a smile, and she shuffled a little closer to hear him better. They were about two steps apart, and Red didn’t feel the itch to look away from his eyes this time.  
  
Her right arm raising higher than her left broke her small daydream to realise Steve was attempting a spin with her. She took his lead, spinning gently, if a little unsteadily, before her arm was lowered back to its original position and they were swaying again. She grinned shyly.  
  
”I know that most normal 40’s dancing was a lot faster than this.”  
  
”Would you like to go faster?”  
  
”No I would not.”  
  
Steve chuckled softly. “Good. I don’t think I could even if I tried,” he said.  
  
They continued to sway at their own pace along to the beat of Steve’s humming until Steve let go of her hand. Slight panic set in when Red thought Steve wasn’t going to take her answer seriously, but instead, he just took a step back and held her at arm’s length with the other hand. Red’s brow creased before she realised he was trying to guide her into another spin, and as carefully as she could, she turned inwards with Steve’s hold on her hand lingering in the air. She landed back in his arms without tripping over herself and grew a confident smile.  
  
”I’m gonna get dizzy.” Red chuckled.  
  
Steve’s gentle expression tinted with worry. ”Would you like to stop?”  
  
Somewhere in Red’s mind, it registered they’d changed position. There was barely an inch of space between them anymore, and a warmth on her back told her Steve’s hand was no longer holding warily onto her hand or her waist but instead placed protectively on her upper spine.  
  
Steve didn’t look to have noticed.  
  
Red found she didn’t mind.  
  
”Not yet.” She shook her head gently with bright eyes.  
  
Steve seemed content with the answer and kept swaying but he was no longer humming.  
  
Red didn’t feel like pointing it out, instead hit by the thought of how from this close she could smell the stuff Sam used for the laundry on his shirt, mixed with the bar soap she’d seen kicking around the bathroom. While thinking about how weird that was to notice, she also realised that Bucky, conversely, had always smelt like old leather and whatever shampoo they’d managed to scoop up at the shop.  
  
From this close, Steve could see her mind wandering. She tended to chew her lip when she did that, and her eyes went off into the middle distance. He let her alone to think but couldn’t help noticing how her lip biting was turning the usual rosy pink to a colour reminiscent of the 5c apples Bucky’s mother used to put in her pies. And it didn’t help that she used that cinnamon-scented body spray that was amplified by a thousand because of his senses. Those pies had been and still were to this day the sweetest things he’d ever tasted. He wondered if-  
  
”You two throwing your own party over there?” Clint called out above the music with a loud laugh, breaking the two out of their daydreaming and dancing position simultaneously.  
  
Wolf whistles and a few teasing noises followed from the other side of the room and Red responded incredibly adult-like by flipping the bird back to the tipsy archer who was more right than he knew.  
  
”At least I won’t have a massive hangover come morning,” Red mumbled quiet enough only Steve would hear, turning back to him with one hand still holding onto his.  
  
Steve’s eyes weren’t on her as his other hand itched the back of his neck.  
  
”Hey, this was your idea. Don’t go acting like a blushing virgin now, Steve. You’re a 1920’s Brooklyn kid, not a Kansas farmer.” Red folded her arms.  
  
The blond huffed. ”I just… don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”  
  
”I’m not,” she promised him with an easy nod.  
  
Steve settled immediately at her words.  
  
”And I think that’s about as much of a break as we’re going to get for the night. Back to babysitting,” Red tried to joke and nudge him.  
  
Steve hummed and agreed.  
  
”I’m gonna get another drink,” Red decided.  
  
”Good idea.”  
  
As she walked away, the hands still holding onto each other slid apart and left a cold static in either palm. Steve curled his hand into a fist, shaking his head to shake off the feeling and glancing down the hallway.  
  
“I’m gonna go to the bathroom.”  
  
”Cool.”  
  
When Steve returned from the bathroom after splashing his face with cold water, Natasha had managed to persuade Scott and Clint to head home if they wanted to sneak back without raising their house arrest alarms. The bracelet shut-offs only lasted so long even with their tech. So, a few hugs and handshakes given, the drunkest of the lot stumbled outside and into the night while Sam thought it was a great idea for more drinks.  
  
Natasha decided she would quit while she was ahead and said goodnight before skipping up the stairs to her room.  
  
Sam packed it in once he realised “everyone fun’s gone now, you two are boring” before stumbling off to his own quarters, leaving Steve and Red together in the quiet.  
  
”Well… that was a night,” Steve said once they were alone again.  
  
”Honestly, I’m just happy no one was sick on the sofa. I gotta sleep,” Red chuckled, picking up her backpack from where she’d cleverly hidden it behind. She began to pull out some bedclothes as Steve cleared up the rest of the bottles into the bin. Her movements slowed for a moment. “Thank you, by the way.”  
  
Steve hummed inquiringly, starting to wipe down the counter with a cloth.  
  
”For the dance,” she explained. Steve’s movements stuttered. “It was a good experience. Probably would have enjoyed prom a little more if someone danced with me like that.”  
  
”Happy to help,” Steve replied with a polite smile before tossing the used cloth in the sink.  
  
Red hummed and picked up her bedclothes to set on the pillow she used for her head, kicking away her backpack around the sofa again.  
  
Steve nodded shortly, looking down the hallway and back to her. ”Goodnight,” he waved to her before walking towards the stairs.  
  
”Night.”  
  
He jogged up the stairs to his room, trying to shake off the itchy feeling lingering underneath the skin on the back of his neck as he stripped down for sleep. He could only imagine what Bucky’s response to all of this was, other than critiquing his posture while he danced, that is. He brushed the thoughts away along with that static feeling in his palm again and slid under the covers, falling into a dreamless sleep.


	46. Hands

**October 6th**  
  
_”My name is King T'Challa, son of King T'Chaka. I am the sovereign ruler of the Nation of Wakanda and for the first time in our history, we will be sharing our knowledge and resources with the outside world. Wakanda will no longer watch from the shadows. We cannot, we must not. We will work to be an example of how we as brothers and sisters on this Earth should treat each other. Now more than ever, illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. In times of crisis, the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.”_  
  
The words rolled over in Red’s mind as she flicked over the next page in her book.  
  
It was the first bit of good news they’d received in a little over a week, but the newscast had been met with an underwhelming response from the group, the mood soured by everything else they’d been dealing with for the last couple of days.  
  
The associates that had come out of the woodwork following the trafficking takedown had been disappointing. Most had managed to evade the team’s justice, disappearing under the radar or into the company of other underhand groups, and every lead they managed to grasp onto at the last second was followed to another dead end. Any new contacts they had made or old ones who hadn’t yet cut them off due to the Accords came up empty. It was slow, it was quiet, and it was wearing on everyone’s patience to be sat around waiting for something to happen, for their spider’s web to finally feel a telltale tug.  
  
The lack of updates from Shuri on James’s condition didn’t help.  
  
Everything was pushing back against them, so much even the house seemed to be feeling the effects. It felt confined inside, cramped, odd for such a large place. It was like the walls were bowing some days. The silences were deadly and the conversations had whittled down from everyday talk to barely anything past necessary discussion.  
  
Not even that morning’s newscast lightened the mood. No leads, no plans, no Bucky.  
  
Sam and Natasha had escaped the living room after the TV switched off with excuses of phone calls and groceries, leaving the remaining two on opposite ends of the sofa in deafening silence.  
  
Red tried making a quiet comment on hospital improvements to break the quiet but she could tell Steve wasn’t really listening. He might not have acted the same way Bucky did when something was bothering him, but Red could see the tension in his back, the fists curled on his knees, and that look of burning hope he forever carried in his eyes fading even further with every attempt he made to do something good getting shot down almost instantly. She knew it was bad when she saw that look like he wanted to flip the kitchen table over after dropping the salt shaker at breakfast. But she couldn’t do anything about it.  
  
Steve, on the other end of the sofa, could tell Red wasn’t doing so hot either. She was better at hiding it than he wasn, he could admit, since trying to get an honest opinion from her was like talking to a brick wall, but he knew her well enough by now that he could see something was scratching at her and it wouldn’t go away no matter how much she tried to ignore it. Seeing Red unhappy was not something he enjoyed, and the heavy feeling in his gut that had been growing ever heavier the more dead ends the team came up with wasn’t assisted by the fact.  
  
They both needed a distraction.  
  
Luckily, Steve had the perfect one.  
  
”Can you pose for me today?”  
  
That had startled her out of her reverie but she soon recovered. “Uh, sure,” she’d said, and felt a little happy inside when Steve’s face shifted a little away from stone-faced and into relief. She pushed herself up to sit straight and cleared her throat. “How do you want me?” she asked.  
  
He gave it a moment of thought, and then, ”Just relax on the sofa with your book. Be as natural as possible.”  
  
Which led to now, an hour or so later, Red sitting comfortably reading cross-legged on the sofa as Steve sat at the kitchen table with his sketchpad and pencils scattered beside him. The others had yet to reemerge but Steve and Red remained in their places in a companionable silence that was easy to relax into.  
  
Red tried her best to stay as still as possible. Her focus stayed on her book, only ever moving to turn the page and then being very careful to lay her hand back in the exact position it was before. If she looked up towards Steve her vision would be obscured by her hair either side of her face like a curtain, a purposeful move to shy away from Steve paying attention to her face while she was reading. She’d been told before that she had a “fuck the hell off” face when she was lost in a book and she didn’t want to see that translated on paper. To be honest, she didn’t want to see her face with _any _look on it translated on paper. She just didn’t want to be on paper. But the way Steve looked so calm and relaxed when she peeked around her hair softened her anxiety and she returned to her book, trying her best to forget he was even there.  
  
As time crawled on, she realised, the orange juice from breakfast had made its way through her and she needed the bathroom.  
  
She tried to ignore it.  
  
The feeling persisted.  
  
The thought to ask Steve if she could go crossed her mind, but he looked so deep into his work she didn’t want to disturb him.  
  
She continued to ignore it for a few minutes but it wasn’t going away. She shifted, just the tiniest bit, as it grew more uncomfortable, then froze. Glancing over, it seemed Steve hadn’t noticed, and she relaxed, pretending to read.  
  
A minute later, she shifted again.  
  
And then again.  
  
”Red?” She froze as Steve called her name, giving a questioning hum back to him without looking up. “Everything okay?” he questioned, and this time she did look up. He didn’t look angry, just curious with a slight edge of concern in his voice.  
  
”Yeah, I’m fine,” she said with a shy smile.  
  
Steve’s eyes flicked up and down her form. ”Are you uncomfortable?” he asked.  
  
”No.”  
  
Steve nodded slowly, turning his attention back to the shading of his work.  
  
Red turned to her book.  
  
She really had to go.  
  
She chewed her lip to distract herself, but she couldn’t help shifting again barely half a minute later.  
  
”_Red_.”  
  
Red swallowed. ”I need the bathroom,” she revealed quietly.  
  
”Why didn’t you say something?” he asked. She shrugged, not looking at him. She heard him sigh. “I’ve got enough of a base sketch that moving now wouldn’t be an issue. Go on,” he said like an order and she scooted off the sofa, hurrying upstairs to the bathroom and leaving him alone with his drawing.  
  
Steve watched her go, shaking his head. It took her half an hour just to tell him she needed to go. He sighed, letting it be and rolling his shoulders, taking a proper look at what he had so far.  
  
He hadn’t gone into this wanting perfection, he couldn’t expect it with the lack of practice he’d gotten over the last few months. It was just supposed to be a distraction. But the more and more he added to the page, the more he outlined and sketched and shaded, he felt that phantom force on his hand, the tension straining in his fingers to get it right, to make it perfect, to try to capture Red’s spirit as closely as he could on the page without having to constantly reach for the eraser.  
  
Of course, it helped that Red wasn’t sat in the middle of the room positioned to someone else’s specifications with a crowd of other people attempting to capture the same thing.  
  
The thought had Steve frowning, the idea of other people using Red as their inspiration not one he was sure he was comfortable with. He shook his head, banishing the thought and picking up his pencil, bouncing the eraser end against the paper as a distraction.  
  
He wondered if she’d let him draw her again, closer this time, so he could properly do justice to her features. The way her eyes sparkled all shades of green in the moonlight when he stood close to her on the bridge flashed in his mind and his hand itched to draw them. Perhaps she would even let him take her out to the bridge again to see if he could get it just right.  
  
Red returned in record time, walking briskly in and returning to her place on the sofa almost exactly where he’d put her originally, the only change where her clothes now creased and folded. He could live with that. Twirling his pencil, he continued to add shadow to the surrounding details of the living room.  
  
Red picked up where she left off, relaxing back into place and lost herself in her book once more. It was maybe twenty minutes later she heard Sam enter and walk into the kitchen, taking a glance at the two before he declared ”I’m making a start on dinner.” He stayed quiet otherwise, pulling out pots and pans, and as he was passing Steve glanced over his shoulder. ”Nice, man,” he said and patted Steve’s shoulder.  
  
Red leaned up at the words, squinting her eyes at the page as if she could manage to make out how it looked from here. Not even Steve’s eyes were that good. She soon realised that and slumped back into position, only moving again to turn the page.  
  
It was over dinner Sam told them they had a lead. It wasn’t rock-solid, flimsy at best, but the team decided it was worth a look since nothing else had come up. The client had asked to meet in person a few cities over, so it was decided Nat and Sam would go to check it out while Steve stayed home with Red to make sure no one had found them and were planning on attacking.  
  
  
It was supposed to be a three day trip at the most, and by the next morning, Nat and Sam were packed and heading to the nearest bus station. In the meantime, Red and Steve continued as normal just without the additional company of the others and they seemed to handle being alone together pretty well.  
  
At least until the second day.  
  
Red hadn’t seen Steve all morning, only hearing running water turning on when she was reaching for the door handle and so sat downstairs eating breakfast, waiting her turn. Steve missed breakfast, and that was fine. But now it was creeping close to lunch and she was growing concerned because she hadn’t heard the bathroom door open since she was upstairs. She moved off the sofa and made a start on making a sandwich when she heard a loud thump like a heavy cupboard had been knocked over and crashed on the floor. Then nothing after it.  
  
Unsure what it was, Red stepped out of the kitchen with the butter knife in her hand and into the hallway. ”Steve?” she called out cautiously. When no response came she asked “Steve, are you okay?” a little louder, clutching the knife tighter.  
  
_”I’m fine,”_ came the reply, muffled by a closed door. From where she was standing, she guessed he was still in the bathroom.  
  
Giving it a second and a suspicious squint of the eyes, she just replied with a calm ”okay” and slowly returned to her spot in the kitchen, keeping an ear out for anything else.  
  
In the time it took to make her first sandwich, she’d heard two doors open and close and some shuffling. Deciding perhaps Steve would be hungry, she made another, and then heard a final door open and shut before there were footsteps on the landing and walking down the stairs. She kept her back to the hallway door and cut the second sandwich into triangles, an old habit from her mother, before someone emerged from the doorway.  
  
  
”Hey.” It was Steve, thankfully, slightly dishevelled damp hair and a pale grey shirt with jeans. He hadn’t bothered with shoes or socks.  
  
”Hey,” she greeted back with a soft smile. She gestured to the plate beside her. “Food.”  
  
Steve gave a tired smile not quite reaching his eyes. ”Thank you,” he said all the same, picking up the sandwich and sitting at the table to eat.  
  
”Coffee?” she asked, already reaching for the pot.  
  
”Please.”  
  
Red waited for the machine before pouring him a coffee and herself a glass of orange juice, setting them down at the table and starting to eat her own.  
  
They ate in an… odd kind of silence. They weren’t groundbreaking sandwiches but they were okay, that’s what Red told herself when she’d finished half of hers and realising Steve only having taken a few bites from his. She sipped her orange juice and continued to eat. By the time she stood with an empty plate, Steve had only got to the second half of his sandwich, which for a supersoldier who usually put away food like he didn’t know when his next meal would be was something Red definitely noticed. She watched him sigh, put down the second half, and rub his eyes with his fingers and thumb.  
  
”You alright?” she asked gently.  
  
He looked up at her from under his hand, and that’s when his dishevelled appearance illuminated itself in a different light. He looked exhausted, worn out, fed up. But he also looked pale as ice and… weak, which for a perfect human specimen like himself was no easy feat. She couldn’t help comparing it to the images of Steve pre-serum, the skinny kid who could have broken a bone catching a baseball, and she knew she definitely wasn’t looking at Captain America in that moment.  
  
_“The little kid from Brooklyn too dumb not to run away from a fight” _Bucky’s words echoed in her mind.  
  
”Its nothing,” he finally said, the look of a tired little boy disappearing from his face with a deliberate swipe of his hand and a slow inhale, stretching his arms out and rolling his neck with a soft sigh.  
  
Red tilted her head at him, watching, studying, and he did a double-take on her eyes as his arms rested on the table again. Red didn’t say anything but he knew she wanted to. She didn’t believe him, and they were both aware of the fact. But she wouldn’t push. Steve wasn’t sure what he would do if she did. So they both stayed silent, staring at each other, until Red turned away first and began to wash her dish under the faucet.  
  
”Did you knock something over, before?” she asked, putting her dish to the side and wiping her hands on her jeans. “It sounded heavy,” she added.  
  
”Uh… no. I, uh, I slipped,” Steve answered carefully, eyes flicking away to the fridge when Red turned back around.  
  
”You alright?” She had to ask.  
  
Steve nodded. ”Yeah. Too much water in the bath.”  
  
”Oh, I thought you had a shower.” She leaned back on the counter, thinking. Glancing at the clock, she hummed. ”Long time in the bath. Did you fall asleep?”  
  
Steve hesitated for a stretch before answering. ”Yes, I did.” His eyes seemed to grow distant for a moment, looking back at Red. “I woke up and it was freezing. Practically like ice.”  
  
It was the wording that made it click. Red blinked and slowly put the pieces together in her mind. She wished she’d gone upstairs now.  
  
Steve finished his mug of coffee in a few long gulps before holding his hand out towards the counter. “Can you hand me the pot?” he asked.  
  
Red did, cautiously, and his hand was shaky when he took it. The coffee inside sloshed around and the metal tip of the pot clattered repeatedly against the rim of the porcelain cup as he tried to pour his own drink.  
  
”Easy, Steve,” Red said barely above a whisper as she watched him put it down on the table, a few drops splashing on the surface and pooling, before taking both hands and holding the mug. The mug started to rattle against the table as he tried forcing his hands to still. “Breathe,” she instructed, sitting across from him.  
  
Steve shook his head, grip tightening. ”I couldn’t.”  
  
”Couldn’t what?”  
  
”Breathe,” he answered like it was being forced out of him. “It was so cold. I had to get out. I had…” he didn’t finish, bringing the mug up to himself unsteadily and gulping it down.  
  
”You’re going to spill that.” Red reached out and slipped the mug from his hands, barely missing scalding his legs with the spilling liquid before she put the mug half-finished and steaming back on the table.  
  
The ex-captain didn’t look happy about that but Red couldn’t bring herself to care, not when he’d been within inches of third-degree burns because he was too stubborn. Steve instead curled his hands into fists on the table to try and force the tremors to stop.  
  
Red reached out, her fingertips brushing his knuckles and his eyes snapped to her. Unlike that time in his room, she didn’t pull back, but instead let her fingers curl around his fist, her touch scalding compared to his icy skin. It shocked her, previously having compared him to a burning furnace to now feel him as cold as the ice he lost to. But she pressed on, squeezing around his balled hand in hopes to provide even minute comfort to him.  
  
Steve was staring at her, mouth dry as he itched to reach for the coffee again, anything to warm him up. But it seemed Red was doing that job just fine, her hand around his a blessed warmth that he let his hand fall open for. Her fingers gently hooked onto his at the invitation, and their hands locked together. He breathed in deep, closing his eyes for a second, before letting it out and relaxing his hand as best he could in her grip.  
  
She gave him a reassuring squeeze for his efforts. ”Looks like you and James have that in common. You both don’t like cold water,” she said softly with a hint of a smile. Steve could appreciate the attempt at humour, still trying to make his other hand behave, but it was calmer now than before. He flattened that hand on the table, squeezing Red’s with the other.  
  
They sat like that for a few minutes, or it could have been a few seconds, neither of them were really concentrating. But when Steve’s shaking finally subsided and his body slumped back into the kitchen chair, Red took it as her cue.  
  
“I’ve said this to James and I’ll say it to you: I’m not a therapist, but I have a good shoulder if you ever need it.”  
  
Steve could have melted under the warmth of her gaze. ”Thank you,” he said with a lot more strength in his voice than before.  
  
Red’s lips curved into a smile and Steve mirrored it, letting the wonderful warmth that emanated from Red’s hand slowly thaw his own, and inch by inch let the heat creep its way back into his whole body again.  
  
It still wasn’t enough to drive the feeling away completely. “I need a walk. It’s getting cramped in here.”  
  
Red shot him a look. It was a look that clearly said she didn’t believe him but she wasn’t going to call him on it. She knew Steve was much more… physical about his pain, whereas Bucky kept his pain locked with the rest of himself in his mind. Reading a story wasn’t going to cut it for him.  
  
Probably sensing her scepticism, he asked, ”do you want to come with me?”  
  
Red considered. ”I don’t think its the house that’s the problem,” she replied. And then, “You know, James did show me a few things about self-defence back in the apartment. If you needed to spar or something, I could probably hold myself well enough.”  
  
”Not a chance.” Steve shook his head.  
  
”Why not?”  
  
”Because it’s dangerous.”  
  
”I’m not helpless, you know.”  
  
”I’m not calling you helpless, but it’s not that easy. I’m a supersoldier and you’re not properly trained. I’m not going to risk hurting you for real because I couldn’t pull my strength back.” Or because he wasn’t entirely sure his body was completely back to listening to him yet, either.  
  
”I’m not telling you to throw me through a window, Steve. I’ll just hold up my hands and you can practice punching drills or something. Look, Nat and Sam won't be back for a couple more days and I don’t feel right leaving you like this when you don’t have to be and I know I can help.” She laced his fingers with hers and tilted her head, puppy dog eyes on the horizon. “Please.”  
  
_Bad idea. Bad idea. Bad. Idea._  
  
Bucky would kill him if he found out he was even considering it.  
  
”Okay,” he said.  
  
Bucky was gonna kill him.  
  
”Okay?” Red asked, squinting at him a little suspiciously, obviously expecting more argument on his half.  
  
He was too tired for arguments on his half. ”Okay,” he confirmed, nodding.  
  
Bucky wasn’t here right now. And what he currently didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.  
  
  
  
From previous times hiding out at Sam’s place, Steve knew his friend had training equipment stashed around the house. And so after locating the cupboard under the stairs, he pulled out a pair of punching mitts and passed them over to Red. Even if he was letting Red help, he was going to take precautions, especially when he still wasn’t entirely trusting of his own body again just yet. Red looked ready to pout but thought better of it and just slipped them on, following Steve outside to the backyard. There was less of a chance of being spotted out there and a softer surface for Red to fall back on should it be needed.  
  
They did punching drills as suggested, Steve starting off with barely any strength in his hits much to Red’s not-so-subtle annoyance, but as his confidence increased so did his strength. He stopped at about half which was normal for sparring with anyone besides Natasha before hearing Red mutter something about pulled punches and something else about being an uptight gentleman.  
  
So Steve put just a _little _more effort into his next swing, and Red fell back on the grass with a thump and a squeak. When she pulled herself up to sitting and looked accusingly at Steve, he shrugged in a clear _“told you so”_ manner and an overly polite smile, extending a hand to help her back up.  
  
Safe to say she had no more complaints about his strength. Though she did have the cutest little pout on her face for the rest of the drills. Steve, for the sake of his own health, did not mention it to her, but the glares Red kept sending his way told him the grin on his face was obvious enough.  
  
He grinned like Red was the cutest little thing he’d ever seen, and while it was patronising as fuck, it annoyingly boosted her self-esteem more than she would ever admit to anyone. It felt nice to be useful. It felt good to be wanted.


	47. Calling

**Two weeks later - October 21st**  
Sam was putting the finishing touches on breakfast when Steve walked into the kitchen just behind Natasha.  
  
”Hey, I’m just about done here.” Sam plated up the rest of the pancakes, the third mountainous stack he put out on the table for sharing, and ice-cream before setting them on the table. He wiped off his hands on his jeans and cast a glance to the others. “Where’s the guest of honour?”  
  
Nat and Steve looked at each other with a shared look of confusion before Steve turned back to the hallway, offering to go find her.  
  
It didn’t take too long to find her, hearing a quiet voice towards the back of the house and following it to the pantry and out to the backyard step. The pantry was narrow and the way the sun was angled this early in the morning cast Red’s shadow from the open door to flood most of the room in darkness. Her hand was up to her ear as she stood facing the garden, and Steve soon realised she had a phone in her hand.  
  
”No, everything’s good. Just been a bit busy,” she replied to whoever she was talking to, and by the way she hadn’t turned around yet suggested she hadn’t heard Steve come in. “It’s tough but I’m managing,” she continued after a pause.  
  
He couldn’t hear who was on the other end and decided to wait rather than interrupt.  
  
She hummed softly into the phone. “Yeah, I made a few friends. No, I’m not up partying every night. No, I do not have a boyfriend.” she answered with a hint of humour. A longer pause, then a weak chuckle. “I don’t like taking pictures, you know me.”  
  
Steve watched her shift and lean on the outer house wall, crossing one ankle over the other and slumping against the wall. She was quiet for much longer than any other time, at one point letting her head fall forward and moving the phone to be held against her shoulder as she let out a tired sigh. After hearing something in particular she put it back to her ear. “Yeah, I’m still here. Signal’s a bit spotty around the campus,” she explained.  
  
_Campus?_ Steve’s brow furrowed.  
  
“I’m just tired. Didn’t sleep well,” she chuckled, forced. She stood up straight again. “I will,” she promised, rubbing the back of her head. “Love you too, mum. See you soon,” she said with finality, pulling the phone away and sliding her thumb across the screen, the photo of her and Bucky now staring back at her before the screen grew dark. She let her hand drop to the side and her head rest on the wall beside her. “What are you doing, Al?” she whispered softly to herself, then slid the phone back into her pocket and turned around, nearly tripping backwards off the step when she noticed the supersoldier staring at her from the darkness of her shadow.  
  
She paused, thinking about how to handle the situation now she realised he’d been listening, and settled for putting a hand on her chest dramatically. “Did they give you ninja training in the army, too? Shit me up just then,” she said accusingly.  
  
Steve wasn’t fooled. ”Everything okay?”  
  
She nodded. ”Yeah.”  
  
Silence followed, and an uncertain staring contest between the two.  
  
”Sam made breakfast.” Steve broke it first.  
  
”Right.” Red nodded, fingers idly beginning to play with her shirt sleeve.  
  
Steve nodded back, planning on heading back to the kitchen and out of this situation as quickly as possible.  
  
“Actually, while you’re here, can you uh...” Red began to ask before he could disappear, Steve stopping in the doorway. “…can I get your opinion on what to wear today?”  
  
“It’s your birthday. You can wear whatever you want.”  
  
”Yeah…” she agreed, but her eyes drifting elsewhere didn’t make her appear confident.  
  
”I’m not really an expert on fashion,” he responded with a wry smile, half turned away.  
  
“But you have a good eye for colours,” she replied, a pleading note in her voice Steve was unable to ignore.  
  
Steve turned back to face her properly. “Are you not wearing that?” He nodded to her casual jeans and shirt combo he’d seen a dozen times by now.  
  
”I have a feeling Natasha won’t be happy if I don’t wear something I bought with her,” Red excused, folding her arms over herself.  
  
Steve remembered that day, sitting in the kitchen with Sam while Red read quietly on the sofa and Natasha, unannounced, had breezed through demanding they go for a “girl’s day out” shopping. Red had been left a little bewildered, but less than five minutes later she was out the door right behind the redhead. Once they returned with bags in hand, Red told the boys apparently Natasha couldn’t watch her walk around in the same three shirts and two sets of jeans anymore. She smartly hadn’t argued about it, though mentioned she’d gotten a comment in about how most of Nat’s own wardrobe was stolen from Sam and Steve which Natasha had chosen to ignore.  
  
“Best not to get on her bad side, even on your birthday,” Steve agreed in present time.  
  
Red hummed affirmative, still watching him and starting to rock on her feet a little, waiting for an answer to her request.  
  
The blond sighed in defeat and nodded, head dipping a little. “Alright.”  
  
Red’s relieved smile was warmer than the sunlight casting her shadow. “Thank you.”  
  
  
The shirt he helped Red pick out was a fitted crimson button-down with pearl white buttons - not her usual style but Natasha had picked it out and Red admitted it wasn’t that bad once it was on. She’d rolled the sleeves up to her elbows and paired it with black jeans that had a red and white checkered pattern poking out from inside the pockets. It was similar to the green checkered pattern on the shirt Steve had chosen to wear that day which Red had joked made him look like a lumberjack. Steve had just shaken his head and led her to breakfast.  
  
Sat in front of the biggest stacks of pancakes Red had ever seen and open tubs of her favourite ice-cream, she quickly realised why Sam had been prodding her about the best breakfasts she’d ever had in her life for the past week, having just thought he’d been bored and thinking about food which wasn’t so far fetched an assumption. The first batch of pancakes had been too salty (Natasha’s favourite) and the second far too sweet (Sam’s favourite) but the third were just right, and the most popular, so she ate most of those and soon after there were none left. She might at one point have been embarrassed by that, but at that moment surrounded by people laughing and playfully shoving and wiping ice-cream on each other’s faces, she couldn’t find it in her to care.  
  
But something still felt kind of… off. It was amidst an anecdote from Sam about his old friend Riley, himself, and an adolescent misadventure including a whole bottle of tequila, she stopped giggling along and she felt the smile on her face slowly fade, a spoon of ice-cream halfway to her mouth. It was like she was waiting for something. What? She didn’t know. She felt the instinct to pinch herself, and her eyes fell from her friend’s face to the spoon of blue-tinted ice-cream slowly melting in front of her. The sharp voices of everyone else became muffled. She blinked once. Twice.  
  
She flinched as a hand landed on her shoulder, and she was suddenly aware of Natasha and Sam shaking with laughter across the table. But it was Steve’s hand on her shoulder, and he wasn’t laughing along, instead, his brow was furrowed and he was looking at her with light concern.  
  
”You okay?” he asked softly so the others didn’t hear.  
  
Red snapped back into reality, plastering a smile on her face and shoving the spoonful of ice-cream into her mouth with an enthusiastic nod at the supersoldier. “Sugar rush,” she mumbled around a mouthful of food and could hear her mother in the back of her mind scolding her for such rude table manners. That reminder made it harder to hold onto the smile. And she felt her heart seize when she realised she could see from his expression that Steve definitely saw that.  
  
Lucky they were interrupted by Sam prodding at Steve and saying, “Your turn. You’ve gotta have some good army stories you can tell.”  
  
Steve removed his hand from Red’s person, hesitating for a second with his eyes still lingering in the young brunette’s direction, before humming thoughtfully and beginning to tell the tale of Peggy Carter challenging all the Howling Commando’s to a push-up challenge, and winning.  
  
Breakfast cleared away, Red hid well her surprise at the others having gotten her presents. She was glad no one asked her the “what do you want for your birthday?” question that seemed to get harder and harder every year because she wouldn’t have been able to give them an answer. She certainly wouldn’t have said a red silk scarf like Natasha got her or a box of cookies with the phrase “Eat Me” in white icing on top that Sam bought. And she definitely wouldn’t have asked for Steve’s present, the last to be opened and with Steve sat fidgeting in his chair doing his best to suppress his nervous energy.  
  
Red had no idea why until she took off the wrapping and was greeted with the sight of her likeness, sketched in pencil, sat cross-legged on the sofa reading her book with her hair obscuring most of her face, all encased in a varnished wood frame and glass. The only reason anyone would know it was her was if they’d seen her posing for it, and she enjoyed that aspect of anonymity in the drawing more than anyone would ever understand.  
  
”It’s excellent. Thank you, Steve,” she said quietly and gave him a soft smile to match.  
  
His fidgeting stilled at her words and he nodded back in thanks.  
  
Sam cleared away the wrapping paper and clapped his hands together. “So, what does the birthday girl wanna do? You got the whole day to command,” he declared with a broad sweep of his arms. Even when the eldest three of the group were hiding from the law, he was determined to try and make this a day to remember.  
  
The newly twenty-one year old thought it over, still holding the framed drawing in her hands. “I didn’t really plan anything special,” she answered honestly, biting her lip.  
  
Sam nodded. ”Okay, what did you do last year?”  
  
Resounding silence had never been a nice thing to hear, and in a room of four people, it was amplified to uncomfortable levels.  
  
”No inspiration there then,” Sam hummed after a few lingering seconds, scratching the back of his neck in thought. “How about a movie?”  
  
Red rolled her lip between her teeth. ”What do you have?”  
  
”Pretty much anything you can think of. Perks of investing in a good TV package.” Sam grinned.  
  
Red thought it over, picking at the bottom of her shirt. She didn’t really want to watch a movie, but it was a distraction that stopped more questions flooding forth. She glanced up at Steve, and suddenly had an idea.  
  
  
  
Red knew Steve had only ever heard of Mary Poppins through her when she mentioned how she’d gotten Bucky hooked on the soundtrack, and now watching it for the first time she was sure he could see why. The songs were addictive, cheery and funny, and it felt like the classic it claimed to be while watching. Natasha and Sam had seen it before, obviously, singing along off-key to the words whenever the film shifted into its next song, and Red did at some points find herself quietly humming along on the softer numbers. But all the while she couldn’t help the thought that this was just a distraction.  
  
The credits rolled and it was announced lunchtime and the cake was brought out from its hidden place in Steve’s room. It was red velvet, her favourite apparently, and decorated with little cups and saucers filled with tea cut out of fondant. She smiled at the sentiment as it was cut and conversation flowed smoothly across the table, but she was only picking at her slice before offering it to Sam, and her smile wavered every so often as she fought to keep it on.  
  
The next round of entertainment was planned to have come in the form of board games Sam dug out from under the stairs. But, a slight problem was in the games he actually had. Snakes and Ladders was considered too childish, no one wanted to play Risk, Monopoly had started but explaining the rules to Steve had been a pain and with the random “House Rules” Sam and Natasha kept trying to throw in Red had to put it away before the table had a chance to be flipped over. And Red had also said _“no”_ to ‘Operation’ fairly quickly after remembering her brush with that bomb in the safehouse, so they ended up giving up and reverted back to watching classic movies before dinner.  
  
Dinner was much quieter than lunch and breakfast had been, and as soon as the plates were cleared away, Red stood up from the table.  
  
“I’m gonna take a walk,” she declared, heading for the front door and pulling on her boots.  
  
“Cool. Let’s grab coats then cause it starting to get-“  
  
“Alone,” she cut Sam off quickly, grabbing her coat.  
  
“Oh.” Sam’s tone betrayed nothing. “Okay. Whatever you want. Just remember there’s a lot of leftover cake waiting here and I can’t promise as much of it will be here when you get back.” He grinned with a wink.  
  
“Knock yourself out, Sam,” Red replied, opening the door and disappearing quietly into the night.  
  
A beat.  
  
“Did that seem a little...”  
  
“I wouldn’t stress about it.” Natasha dismissed Steve’s half-finished question.  
  
He tried not to stress about it. He did, honest. He knew the kid- dame- _woman c_ould handle herself and then some, so he busied himself with other things and tried to forget about it. It wasn’t strange at an hour, it was mildly concerning at two hours, but once it reached midnight and she wasn’t responding to texts from Sam (delivered, not read) even Natasha had to admit that maybe they should be a little stressed about it.  
  
”Maybe one of us should stay up just in case,” Sam suggested.  
  
”I’ll do it.” Steve volunteered, trying his best not to keep breaking his attention away from the TV to glance at the front door for the five hundredth time in the last hour.  
  
The others agreed, lingering for a few minutes just in case before wandering back to their rooms to leave the supersoldier alone pretending to watch some soap opera he couldn’t name or recite any of the plot of if asked.  
  
When it got to one am, he was hesitantly reaching for his coat and boots, and by two am he was out of the door with keys and his phone. One would think Steve wasn’t sure where to start looking first, but as a matter of fact, he knew where he was heading the moment he closed the front door behind him.  
  
His gut feeling rang true. Searching around the streets for any sign of the girl this late into the night was easier than it would have been in the daylight, a lack of people about making it easier to see and move around without worrying about watchers. Although now it seemed much more high-stakes than it would have been under the sun, and there was the very real possibility of a kidnapping on his hands. But then his boots were approaching the bridge, the rushing water filling his ears as he walked over. He stopped in the middle and looked down onto the grassy banks below.  
  
Lo and behold, a small figure was laying curled up on the side of the right bank. And Steve could recognise her figure instantly after spending that day sketching her in finite detail. Jogging around the bridge and down onto the grass, he sped over to her and knelt down beside her.  
  
”Red? Red.”  
  
One sleeve of her coat was soaked up to the elbow, and her jeans were wet from ankle to calf.  
  
She moaned softly, shifting a little where she lay. “What?” she asked, her voice sleepy. Had she seriously just been asleep right now?  
  
”Its’s two in the morning. You’ve been out here for hours,” Steve explained in a what-the-fuck tone as he scanned her body for injuries. What he could see of her hands and face were devoid of any evidence of physical damage but that didn’t mean she was completely unharmed.  
  
”Oh,” was her response.  
  
Steve squinted his eyes at the side of her face hidden partially by her hair, and shifted a little so he could see her face properly. She looked much paler than he ever remembered her being in the moonlight. And it was like she wasn’t even registering what he said.  
  
”Red, are you… alright?” His racing mind managed to catch up with his eyes and was now starting to think beyond a single goal.  
  
Red didn’t respond, and for a moment Steve believed her to be falling asleep again.  
  
Steve reached out a tentative hand, fingers brushing the hair away from her face and accidentally grazing her cheek. Her skin was freezing, and he could only imagine what the wet clothes were doing to help.  
  
”You’re like ice.”  
  
A hum.  
  
Yanking off his coat, Steve quickly wrapped it tightly around her body, rubbing her upper arms in an attempt to warm her quicker in the cold.  
  
She didn’t seem to have the energy to complain or even put up a fight about his manhandling, not even flinching when he touched her.  
  
Steve was growing increasingly worried. The way she was acting reminded him of some things from his past, some things he did not want to revisit. ”We should go back to Sam’s,” he tried to distract both himself and her by talking.  
  
She stayed silent.  
  
He stood up, but she remained where she was. ”Are you coming?” he prompted.  
  
Nothing.  
  
Steve sighed, rubbing his eyes with one hand. ”Red. Up,” he ordered, frustrated and worried.  
  
Not even that seemed to break through the haze in her mind, staying where she was lying and doing nothing more.  
  
Steve had had enough. He took her in his arms and held her bridal style, finding no resistance but no help at the same time, making sure his coat stayed wrapped around her. He began to lead her up the bank up to the bridge.  
  
”Where are we going?” Red mumbled in his arms, slowly becoming more aware.  
  
”Home.”  
  
”No.” She squirmed slightly in his grip in response. “Don’t wanna go home.”  
  
”You can’t stay here.”  
  
”I already called. Don’t wanna tell them the truth. Can’t.” She continued, eyes still closed as she buried her face in Steve’s neck. “Coward,” she mumbled defeatedly.  
  
Steve stared at her, completely lost now. ”Red, what are you talking about?”  
  
Her eyes screwed up, still closed, and then they opened and peered curiously at the blond’s face. ”Steve?” she questioned, head tilting.  
  
”Yeah, it’s me. And I’m taking you back to Sam’s because its two in the morning and you were asleep freezing on the riverbank.”  
  
”Want it to hurt. Wanna feel…” she mumbled before collapsing completely in his arms.  
  
Steve tried not to think too hard on what that meant right now, crossing the bridge and carrying her all the way back to the house, neither one saying another word to each other.  
  
  
They didn’t speak again until they were walking back into the house, Steve kicking shut the door and locking it before guiding Red to lie down on the sofa, not before grabbing her backpack from the couch first. Red said nothing, still half-asleep in his arms, as he sat her on the edge of the couch. Her eyes blinked awake.  
  
Steve zipped open her backpack and pulled out her bedwear, laying it in her lap.  
  
“Change,” he instructed firmly, jogging upstairs to his room and getting changed himself before grabbing the extra blankets from the cupboard and bringing them back down.  
  
When he returned he saw Red had changed like he asked, now standing awkwardly at the side of the sofa.  
  
Laying the spare blanket on top of the one she normally used, he unfurled them both and peeled them back so there was space to shuffle underneath. “In.”  
  
She fulfilled the order silently and slid into the makeshift bed, Steve laying both covers on top of her and tucking her in just a little.  
  
He took a step back, picking up her wet clothes off the floor before tossing them into the washing machine and boiling the kettle. Less than five minutes later he was guiding a cup of hot chocolate into her hands and she sat up to take a small sip. “Warmer?”  
  
Red nodded, a little more awake than before.  
  
Satisfied, Steve nodded and ran his hands over his face and through his hair, tugging the strands just a little.  
  
“Are you mad at me?” Red asked no louder than a mouse.  
  
“What?” Steve pulled his hands away.  
  
“Are you mad at me, Steve?” she asked again at the same tired and voice cracky volume.  
  
“No. No, of course not. I’m just... worried about you.” He sat gently on the edge of the coffee table to settle himself more on her level. This close he could see the colour was coming back to her face. “You disappeared for hours. You were asleep on the side of the river and freezing,” he told her.  
  
She didn’t answer that but he knew she’d heard him this time. She finished the mug off and put it on the side, sliding down underneath the covers and snuggling under the blankets for warmth.  
  
Steve stood up and closed the curtains to the windows, plunging the room into an almost darkness with the barest sliver of light coming in from where the curtain didn’t quite cover the window. He reached to turn on the nearby lamp, emitting the gentlest glow.  
  
”Are you going to be okay if I go?”  
  
A nod. ”Yes.”  
  
_No._  
  
”You sure?” Steve’s eyes scanned her up and down.  
  
”I’m fine.”  
  
_Don’t leave._  
  
He hesitated a moment longer before nodding. ”Alright.”  
  
_I don’t wanna be alone._  
  
He looked around the room like he’d forgotten something, a hand coming up to itch the back of his neck. ”Would you mind if I stayed down here anyway? I don’t feel all that sleepy.” He shrugged.  
  
”Sorry.”  
  
”Its nothing.” He waved it off easily.  
  
He wandered to the bookshelf in the corner, picking up the familiar Emma sticking out from amidst the others with a bookmark he didn’t recall ever having owned, but it looked to be marking about where he left off. He dismissed it and walked over towards Sam’s chair, but as he went to sit, he saw Red had shuffled further down the sofa and was patting the empty space by her head.  
  
“You want me over there?”  
  
She nodded. _Please._  
  
Steve stood back up and switched places, sitting down in the space offered even when that meant Red’s body was crunched up with the lack of space. He opened the book to the bookmark, placing the ripped corner of a page with his name scrawled in pen across it on the coffee table before leaning back and starting to read, feeling Red snuggle up under the covers properly beside him.  
  
“Are you definitely warm enough?” he couldn’t help asking again.  
  
She took a few seconds to respond. “My nose is cold.” She sounded like she was smiling when she said it but she was turned away so he couldn’t see for sure.  
  
Steve reached over and slid his arm underneath her shoulders, gently prompting her to shift closer and soon felt her cold nose press on his leg, her head resting comfortably against his thigh.  
  
“How’s that?” he asked, hand lingering on her shoulder, thumb rubbing idle circles over her shirt.  
  
Red was silent as she considered it, and then after a few moments relaxed into his touch, her eyes gently fluttering shut. “Better,” she admitted softly like a secret.  
  
Steve hummed. He agreed.


	48. Aftermath

**The next morning…**  
The first time Steve woke up, it was to the sound of shuffling and quiet whispering. He might once have been concerned about waking up to those sounds, too many nights spent tense in his bunk anticipating an attack on him and the Commando’s, but when his brain put voices to the faces of Sam and Natasha he didn’t bother to force himself out of sleep. Though he couldn’t help sleepily opening his eyes out of curiosity to see them blurrily pulling on jackets and shoes by the door.  
  
Natasha was the first to notice him stirring. ”We’re going to a meeting. Should be back in a few hours,” she stage-whispered across the room and Steve nodded softly, watching them leave and quietly shut the door to lock it.   
  
As he sighed through his nose and lifted his hands to rub at his neck, sore from falling asleep in an upright position, one wrist collided with something heavy that wasn’t the sofa and he looked down. Red was lying unconscious with her head pillowed on his thigh, blissfully unaware of anything happening around her.   
  
He almost envied her ability to sleep so easily. He’d never been able to do so without influence from medication, even before the war, whether he was kept up by various health conditions or just a reoccurring case of insomnia. Bucky used to fret so much about it, even when Steve called him out for being worse half the time. In fact, the only time they ever seemed to get enough sleep to properly function was when they were next to each other.  
  
The apartment he and Bucky used to share had been small but the tattered living room couch was big enough for two, with Steve taking up as much space as a matchstick and Bucky not exactly the bulkiest kid around town. It was common for them to cuddle up in the winter months when coal supplies started to thin out and Steve’s risk of an asthma attack (above every other health problem that worsened in cold weather) was at its peak. And the two had been close enough not to feel strange waking in a tangle of limbs with no clue how they got there because Bucky got back late last night and had wanted nothing more than to crash on the sofa and ouch, was it always this lumpy- oh hey Steve, you have charcoal on your nose and shuffle up ‘cause your boney ass is digging into my ribs.  
  
Steve huffed softly at the memory. He didn’t think he and Bucky had any chance of fitting on that sofa together now, though. Even if only one of them had undergone the supersoldier fate they would have struggled to slot together on that threadbare thing with the old patchwork blanket between them.   
  
He’d been exactly the same when stuck awake in his cot at night as the Commando’s hid out in the snowy mountains midway to HYDRA, Bucky always sleeping in the cot on Steve’s left whenever they could get away with it. Somehow Bucky seemed to sleep easier out there than he had at home, dead to the world but his face always in Steve’s direction. And when the cold was particularly bitter and they both laid awake pretending to sleep, Steve couldn’t help but feel the urge to reach out and ask if perhaps they might push their cots together and try to find some semblance of comfort, enough to sleep at least a few hours before they trudged back into the snow. Sometimes they would, and neither would admit the next morning it was the best sleep they’d had in weeks.  
  
The Captain hadn’t thought much of it back then, or now, in fact. And looking back on it for the first time he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.  
  
Movement from his peripherals broke him from his thoughts and he froze. Red shifted around beside him, adjusting her position underneath the blanket and flipping over from one side to the other before settling again, her head still on his thigh and happily asleep. She let out a short breath before falling still.  
  
Steve stayed still above her, watching and waiting in case she suddenly roused from sleep or he did something to accidentally wake her up, but after at least ten seconds of silence, he relaxed, one hand returning to its place on her shoulder as it had been the night before. After last night’s fiasco, she deserved a good rest. Especially if she wanted to talk about it when she woke up. He hoped she did. But it was her choice, and she needed the rest.  
  
So, with that in mind, Steve relaxed back into the sofa, remembering to steal a cushion from the other end to support his neck this time, and closed his eyes, falling asleep much easier than he thought he would.  
  
  
The next time Steve woke up he was still the only one awake. Sunlight was streaming in through the crooked curtain windows and lighting the kitchen clock. He’d missed his morning jog time by a wide mile but couldn’t be bothered to care, not when it had been the best sleep he’d had in weeks.  
  
A quick glance down told him Red was definitely still asleep and looking no closer to waking up than she had been before. But Steve needed the bathroom. And he could do with freshening up in general.  
  
He put it off as long as he could before he had to go and began to, as carefully and slowly as he could, slide out from underneath her, and after a minute or so of stopping every time he thought he was waking her, he finally managed to settle her back on the pillows and dash upstairs to use the bathroom. He did end up grabbing a towel and showering with a fresh change of clothes on top before padding quietly back down the stairs. He realised by the smell of detergent in the air Sam must have done laundry, and could see Red’s coat and jeans hanging up with the rest through the foyer door.  
  
He needn’t have bothered being so quiet as he saw Red sat up on the sofa, rubbing her face with both hands and muttering something inaudible.  
  
She shook her head, clearly lost in her own thoughts since she jumped when Steve said ”Good morning,” in as soft a voice as he could manage, which was still a little croaky first thing in the morning.  
  
She pulled her hands from her face and looked over her shoulder at him tiredly. ”Morning.”   
  
Steve stepped closer, a hint of concern clouding his blue eyes. ”How are you feeling?” he asked carefully as he studied her.  
  
She took a minute to consider her answer. ”I’m alright,” she said finally, hands dropping to her lap.  
  
”Good.” He nodded before he took a gentle seat on the end of the coffee table beside her.   
  
Silence invaded the room, neither person sure what to say.  
  
”How are _you _feeling?” Red asked.  
  
”I’m fine.”   
  
Red looked at him, her gentle green eyes feeling as if they were staring right through his body.   
  
Steve’s calm front wavered under that stare. “I was really worried about you last night,” he revealed quietly, and Red’s eyes moved elsewhere. “We all were. You left without much warning, and then I find you asleep on the river bank, freezing and barely responding.” He held one hand in the other, trying to avoid fidgeting. He said all this the night before but he didn’t know how much she remembered from her dazed state.  
  
”I’m sorry,” she mumbled out.  
  
He shook his head dismissively. ”I’m just glad you’re okay now.”  
  
Red didn’t give a reply to that, she only readjusted her position on the sofa.  
  
Steve, noticing her curling up a little more with the pillows, reached carefully for the blanket bunched around her legs and lifted it up to wrap around her shoulders as it had before. She’d been so cold last night, scarily so, her skin like ice, and a part of him had been worried she’d wake up coughing and wheezing. Luckily, now awake, she didn’t seem to be too bad.  
  
”Are you still cold?” he had to ask.  
  
She shook her head, rearranging the blanket to sit more comfortably over her.  
  
”Is your nose cold again?” he teased, the corner of his mouth tilting up into a smile.  
  
She shook her head a second time, the joke passing by without notice.  
  
Steve’s smile dropped off his face but he kept his tone light. ”You don’t have hypothermia at least. I’ve had it enough times to know.”  
  
Her brow furrowed. ”How many times..?”  
  
”More than you would believe.”  
  
Red paused for a beat, recalling a few pages of Bucky’s diaries. ”Why were you even leaving the house during the day? A stiff breeze could’ve broken you in two back then,” she said matter-of-factly.  
  
Steve smiled. ”You sound like Bucky.”  
  
”James sounds like common sense.”  
  
That startled a laugh out of the blond. “Oh, you think so? You wouldn’t be saying that if you’d been with us back then.”  
  
Red tried to imagine herself in the ’40s beside a pre-serum Bucky and Steve, just as the war was starting. She’d probably have victory curls in her hair and wear knee-length dresses with heels and gloves, her lips painted on red. Not her style by a long shot.   
  
And from what she’d read about the boys both online and in Bucky’s notebooks, about all the things they managed to get up to together back then, she found she agreed with Steve. Though they were talking a couple of decades ago. And then Steve got the serum, and Bucky followed after. If they were going by common sense now… yeah, it probably still wouldn’t be Bucky.  
  
”No. I guess not,” she hummed thoughtfully on the subject. She probably wouldn’t have even met the boys if she’d been their age in the ’40s. And that thought made her stomach clench up unexpectedly.  
  
”Do you want some breakfast?” was Steve’s next question, glancing to the kitchen clock.  
  
Red shook her head. ”I’m alright.”  
  
Steve pushed himself up to stand and Red already missed the closeness. ”I’m gonna make something,” he said and wandered into the kitchen, flicking on the coffee maker and in the meantime starting on making a sandwich. It seemed too late in the morning for regular sausage and eggs, the clock hands closer to lunch, and he wanted something simple anyway.  
  
It was silent as Steve brewed the coffee and stacked his sandwich, pouring a mug and asking Red who had been uncharacteristically silent until this point, receiving a polite decline before picking up a knife to cut his food up.  
  
”Are you going to ask me about last night?” Red piped up for the first time in a good few minutes.  
  
”If you don’t want to talk about it, then it’s not my business.”  
  
”Do _you _want to?” she asked.  
  
Steve hesitated for a moment before he admitted, ”Yes.”   
  
”Why?”  
  
Steve let out a small sigh through his nose, his shoulders tensing ever so slightly. “You were gone for almost seven hours. You ignored our texts.”  
  
”I threw my phone in the river,” Red told him.   
  
Steve paused his sandwich-halving and looked at her.   
  
“And after realising how much of a pain it would be to replace went to go get it, thus wet jeans and coat. I sat on the bank and daydreamed for a while after. Must have fallen asleep between thoughts,” she mumbled the explanation.  
  
”Why throw it in the first place?”  
  
”It was annoying me,” she replied bluntly. “It’s waterproof though. Even after being drowned for an hour by a river it still works,” she sounded somewhat bitter about the fact.  
  
Steve regained his hand coordination and finished using the knife before putting it back in the drawer and picking up his plate.   
  
”What else did you do last night?” He pulled out a chair from the table and sat so he had Red on his left and the table and sandwich on his right.  
  
”Thought.”  
  
”About?”  
  
”Stuff.”  
  
He took a bite of his food and swallowed before talking, like a gentleman. ”Like what?”  
  
She shrugged. ”Just stuff I needed to think about.”  
  
”Stuff like your phonecall?” he asked and watched as Red suddenly went very tense. It wasn’t a defensive tense, but the kind that hoped whoever had caused it didn’t continue with their line of questioning. Clearly, a nerve had been touched.  
  
“How much of my phone call did you hear?” she asked carefully.  
  
He began to backtrack. ”You don’t have to-”  
  
”Steve.”   
  
Steve stayed quiet for a stretch, deliberating, as Red hadn’t yet lost the tension in her body. “You’re supposed to be on campus?” he questioned gently as if he could make the question itself softer.  
  
“My parents think I’m studying English at college, away from home,” she explained.  
  
“Why aren’t you?”  
  
“They expect me back at Christmas.” She side-stepped the question.  
  
Steve didn’t dwell. “And you don’t want to go back?”  
  
“I don’t…” She didn’t finish, the words fading away before she could grasp them. She shook her head and looked down. “I don’t know what I want.” Red ran her hands through her hair, gripping tight when she got to the ends and tugging sharply. “I can’t _think_.”  
  
”You’re _over_thinking.”   
  
Red grunted, in a way that was neither an admittance or a disagreement. ”Can’t help it. It gets too quiet so my thoughts fill up the silence. And I’m left just as confused as I was in the first place.” She lowered her head and leaned back against the sofa, clutching at the blanket edges instead of her hair.  
  
Steve understood those words better than most people would believe. The solitude allowed too much time for reflection, for internal drift, and being alone too long with your thoughts, as he’d discovered, can lead down mental paths that are difficult to crawl back from. He’s nearly lost himself a few times in this century.  
  
It hurt to hear another person say it out loud. Especially a friend. Especially Red.  
  
Not content with the quiet or the distance between them anymore, Steve took another bite of his sandwich before leaving the kitchen and walking back to the coffee table to sit near her, plate set beside him. ”Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.  
  
Red shook her head. ”It won’t help.” She sounded certain.  
  
”You never know,” Steve said hopefully. Red glanced at him, a glimmer of something in her eyes, but said nothing as it left just as quickly as it had appeared. Steve took that as a sign to leave it alone, for now. “Alright. Since talking is off the table, what would you rather do today? Sam and Natasha won’t be back for a few hours yet so we have the house to ourselves.”  
  
Red thought about it, holding the blanket tighter. ”I want to sleep,” she said, but there was a lack of conviction in her voice as though she was just answering for the sake of answering.  
  
And Steve being Steve, he ever so gently called her out on it. ”Is that what you really want?” he asked, trying to catch her eye as she stared continuously downward.  
  
Red swallowed. ”I want to stop thinking,” she corrected. Silence, and then her eyes flicked to just behind Steve. “Can you pass me my bag, please?”   
  
Steve quickly passed the backpack over and watched her take out her Red Riding Hood story from it, flicking through the pages to find the ripped up notebook corner she used as a bookmark.   
  
”How many times have you read that book?” He squinted at it, having seen it in her hands so often over the time they’d spent together.  
  
Red shrugged with no clue whatsoever. ”It’s my favourite. And it stops me thinking,” she explained quietly, just above a confessing whisper.  
  
Steve’s mind had begun to theorise why it was so popular to be seen in her hands before Red continued,  
  
”Its also where James got my name from. I wouldn’t tell him my real one, which was fair because he wouldn’t tell me his either, but after seeing how obsessed I was with the book he dubbed me “Red”. I called him “James” after finding a notebook scrawled with his name and army number in a safehouse drawer.”  
  
Steve nodded, looking down at the half-eaten sandwich on his plate, trying to figure out his next move.  
  
Apparently, he was sat there for a while because Red eventually chirped up. ”Are you going to sit there all day?”  
  
Steve looked at her. ”Would you like me to?”  
  
Red hesitated, visibly, which had Steve thinking. She looked back to her book and shuffled back into the couch. ”The sofa’s comfier,” she said with a faux nonchalance that Steve would have believed had they not had the conversation they just had.  
  
Steve hummed, picking up the rest of his sandwich and finishing it before running the plate under the tap and returning to the sofa. He sat in the space Red had made for him to sit, the same place he had last night, and he picked up the book he’d left on the stand just beside them. Opening to the marked page he’d been falling asleep at, he restarted the chapter and began to read.  
  
It was quiet for a long time, both lost in their books, and at the end of the latest chapter, Steve briefly wondered if he could put on some music with the speakers and his phone. The talk about himself and Bucky back in their own time left him reminiscing about familiar jazz songs he wouldn’t mind hearing again. Though he knew he would have to ask for assistance, still not completely acquainted with all functions of the phone he’d been gifted for his birthday, and how to connect it to the speaker Sam owned by the TV.  
  
”I’m sorry. I never meant to drag you into my mess,” Red apologised interrupting his daydream, her eyes still transfixed on her book but clearly not reading anymore.  
  
”Don’t start that shit,” Steve said. Red blinked, concentration breaking as the wording caught her off guard. She looked up at the supersoldier. “You’re not dragging anyone into anything. I’m here because I _want _to be, and I’m asking because I _want _to help,” he reaffirmed with emphasis. ”You have a shoulder to cry on with me, too. I’m no therapist either, but if I can help, in any way that comes, I want to.”   
  
Red fell silent. Steve was staring at her with such an unexpected intensity she nearly flinched back but kept her ground, twisting her fingers in the edge of the blanket in little anxious movements.   
  
Steve seemed to notice and his gaze softened immediately. “Red?” he called cautiously to her.  
  
”That’s not what I expected you to say.” she said quietly.  
  
”What did you expect me to say?”  
  
Red opened her mouth, then thought better of the answer she had and closed it again. She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter.”  
  
”Alright.” Steve nodded, watching her form curl slightly in on itself as she adjusted position, seeming to return her attentions to the book in hand once more.  
  
Once he was sure she was definitely reading and not just pretending in order to shake off his concerned gaze, he returned to his own book and grumpily realised he would have to restart the page as he’d been daydreaming through the start of the chapter.  
  
Red beside him shuffled in her place, an idea itching at her that she tried to push away. It wouldn’t, and a few quick glances between her book and Steve only helped feed the desire.   
  
She kept her eyes down, the fingers of one hand gripping the thin blanket fabric tightly and the others slightly bending the pages of her already bent book. ”Can I… can I have a hug, please?” she mumbled out and immediately regretted it, feeling pathetic. Not to mention he probably didn’t want to touch her after having to physically carry her home wet and cold as if she would break on contact. She certainly knew that’s how Bucky would feel.  
  
She soon discovered, however, a distinct difference to make between Steve and Bucky when it came to physical contact - Steve wasn’t constantly afraid she’d shatter into pieces if he touched her.  
  
Without much fanfare over the request from Steve’s end, there were warm arms wrapping around Red’s small frame and pulling her into arguably one of the best hugs she’d ever had.  
  
Red newly remembered how tall the supersoldier was compared to her as he practically dwarfed her frame this close. It took her a few moments but she eventually got her arms to move and slowly wrap around the blond as if worried he’d pull back as soon as she touched him back. He didn’t. The blanket slipped from her shoulders as she finally circled her arms back around him. She could smell the familiar bar soap from the shower and something distinctly _Steve_ this close, and she felt her heart rate soothe its worried thumping. He was warm, just as she knew him to be, and his cardigan was so soft against her cheek.   
  
And he was also really fricking cuddly. Who’d have thought?  
  
”Better?” Steve asked quietly by her ear.  
  
Red curled into him, hands gripping the fabric of his cardigan like a lifeline. ”Much.”  
  
She didn’t see Steve’s gentle smile as he held her closer. At some point in her life before all this, she would have hated being so close to someone, but at that moment she couldn’t have cared less.   
  
She also now understood why Natasha kept stealing Steve’s clothes.   
  
And just how touch-starved she really was because this hug was definitely the best she’d ever had. Bucky’s were a close second. But only because the metal arm was not comfy.  
  
After a few moments, they broke away from each other and settled back into their places on the sofa. Steve was looking at Red softly and she was itching behind her ear and clearing her throat.  
  
”Uh, thanks,” she said eloquently.  
  
Steve chuckled softly. ”No problem.”  
  
Red reached for her book, quickly trying to pick up where she left off and leaning back into the pillows.   
  
Steve reached for his own book, starting the chapter for the third time and leaning back, feeling their shoulders brush together but making no move to end the contact. Neither did Red.  
  
He did do a quick last glance to the girl, recognising how much more relaxed she was now compared to when he’d walked in on her waking up this morning.  
  
He still had questions about what she’d been thinking out. But they could wait, for now.  
  
  
  
  
”We’re back!” Sam cheered triumphantly a few hours later as he walked through the door with Natasha just behind.  
  
Red perked up from her book on the sofa. ”Hey.”  
  
”Hey. How’d the meeting go?” Steve waved from the armchair, reaching across to lower the volume of the gentle jazz playing on the speaker they’d only just managed to talk him through connecting.   
  
Sam put down the bag filled with steaming takeout food on the counter. ”We think we finally have a solid lead on the trading circle. We’ve got a few names and some coordinates but we have to do some background research first. Still, it looks promising.” He gave a smile and a thumbs up.  
  
”Finally.” Steve sighed out, head falling back against the armchair at the promise of _something _finally going their way.  
  
”You two manage alright while we were gone?” Sam asked.  
  
”I made sure Steve didn’t blow up or flood the house, don’t worry. The old man has some common sense left, apparently,” Red teased and quickly ducked out of the way of the pillow thrown at her head by the supersoldier.  
  
It left them both grinning like idiots.   
  
”Good,” the redhead hummed. “We got dinner on the way back. Hope you didn’t eat.”  
  
”Thai food.” Sam grinned.  
  
Red put her book to the side, curious. ”I’ve never had Thai food.”   
  
”You’ll probably like what I usually get. It’s not that adventurous,” Steve said and they both walked up to the kitchen together.  
  
Dinner was dished out and the four settled on discussing some of the smaller details of the meeting as they ate. And if Steve and Red were sat closer together than normal during the meal, no one said anything about it.


End file.
